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I'm sticking with 2x. Some models of the Cannondale Topstone come with this (and that was a factor in my decision to buy one). One of my other options was a Trek Checkpoint.
I wonder if it makes a difference that my MTBs are 2x too, so I'm just used to changing into the appropriate front ring.
I think I'm probably mostly in the right ring. Definitely if I'm going to be in that gear for any length of time.
If it's an efficiency concern, I imagine you'd be "cross-chaining" more on a 1x setup, because more limited gear range means you'd be more likely to be at one extreme of the cassette or the other. Smaller cogs less efficient too.
OK, plenty on both sides of this one. Inconclusive!
While I'm here though, another question: my current frame (Kinesis Crosslight 5 Disc) has post mount brakes which makes getting new hydros a bit more tricky. Were I to go for a new budget frame set with flat mounts for 65/35 winter road/gravel riding, what would you choose from Kinesis Tripster AT, Sonder Camino AL, or Cotic Escapade?
PM callipers are still pretty prevalent. Harder to buy complete lever/brake setups, I guess, but pretty trivial to get levers and callipers separately and connect them up.
I hated 2x on my hybrid when I tried it, always in the wrong chain ring. Gone back to 3x.
This exactly. Even with a 46 on the road, I never get into the 11 at the back. In fact, I could probably lose 2 of the small cogs happily.
Whuh? It's not every commute i go 48x11, but its not rare either. On a 26" wheeled bike though if that makes s difference... With knobbly 2,1" on the front. I do like standing slow-pedalling though. Short fairly easy commutes are my main riding now, no long sustained paced rides.
While I'm here though, another question: my current frame (Kinesis Crosslight 5 Disc) has post mount brakes which makes getting new hydros a bit more tricky
It's not that bad really. You can use any Shimano calipers but I'd avoid the cheap end and use deore calipers. Hose is the same. I'd even consider the new cues shifters in 11 speed form as they look to be basically 105 (in the same way tiagra, GRX 400 and GRX 600 are the same base lever body with slightly different levers and cosmetic differences).
Some of those frames you list are not budget friendly.
Yeah, I use 52x11 pretty much every ride. I still miss 53x11, but 52/36 is a better compromise. One of my folders has an equivalent top gear of 46x12, and I spin out *all* the time on it.
I'm going to file my earlier comment under ablism. Ride what works for you as they say.
I am suprised at folk spinning out on 52 or even 48 tooth chainrings. I can spin to best part of 30 mph on a 36 chainring. Ok its a rather high cadence but how fast are you going?
One of my folders has an equivalent top gear of 46x12, and I spin out *all* the time on it.
Taking wheel size into consideration?
If it's an efficiency concern, I imagine you'd be "cross-chaining" more on a 1x setup, because more limited gear range means you'd be more likely to be at one extreme of the cassette or the other. Smaller cogs less efficient too.
This is what I had always believed but is why I'm now asking the question. On flat sections which are heavier going (e.g. grass, mud, looser or lumpier gravel) I find myself in the big ring and quite high up the cassette, probably the equivalent cross chaining as a 1x setup at it's extremes. Climbing I'm almost always in little ring and top half of the cassette, so no problem there.
Whereas 1x I would probably be relatively central on the cassette for the flat bits and at the extremes for climbing. Feels like this is 'worse' I suppose as more strain on the chain when crossed over AND I need every watt I can get when climbing 😂
To answer the OP, no idea about 2x but with 1x I always am.
44 chainring and 11-46 cassette.
Use the bike for gravel & road plus done some bikepacking on it and live in Scotland so plenty of climbing.
Only weakness would be for racing plus if you're into chain-gangs etc - but I get the impression from the other posts that no one commenting is.
A couple of other benefits are 'economy' as fewer components to break/replace and (ignoring electronic) easier on very long rides as not having to use the wide sweep of a front shifter and/or having to even think about which gear to change.
44 chainring and 11-46 cassette
Yeah... but you're clearly stronger than me, 44 x 46 is a good bit higher than the 30 x 36 I find myself using quite gratuitously!
For 1x I could almost get away with the new 'compact' GRX rear mech and 10-45 cassette, swapping between a 38t chainring for hilly days and a 40t for faster days.
Controversial I know (and I may be about to make myself look an idiot again), but is cross chaining really such a terrible thing? Back in 3x9 days Shimano always instructed that your gears should be set up so that you could ride all combinations, but yes, did advise against riding very crossed gears for prolonged periods as it could accelerate wear.
I'm 3x10 on my main bike and quite happy crossing the chain, dropping into the granny ring approaching a climb & riding small/small for a hundred yards or so before going up the block as I go up. I prefer this to starting up in a bigger ring then front shifting down as I start to struggle & readjusting cogs at the rear. I've no idea which approach is more wearing on the components (although I suspect nobody else does either).
Similarly there's a road descent I often come down, it's very steep but at one point there's a sharp turn followed by a sudden, steep incline before it drops away again steeply. I've no issues staying in the big ring and clicking up into the top third of the cassette here before dropping back down into the lower gears as it falls away; much easier that a couple of front shifts.
I take a similar approach with my 2x10 gravel bike
I appreciate that it's not the done thing, but I get plenty of mileage out of my chains & quite a few chains to a cassette. I'm also 10 speed which is pretty durable, it might be different with slightly more delicate 12 speed. I also appreciate that I'm an aging man with a damaged heart who pootles about, not a hardcore racer or tourer focused on optimisation & efficiency.
Just an interesting observation at this point. Shimano's instructions for setting the high limit screw on GRX front mechs states that you should shift into Top-Trim and the large ring/largest cog combination & adjust so the inner plate is 0-0.5mm from the chain. This presumably dials out cage rub in the large/large combination which seems an odd thing to be overly bothered with if you're never mean to be in that combination.
Controversial I know (and I may be about to make myself look an idiot again), but is cross chaining really such a terrible thing?
Probably not, my reasons for trying to avoid it are all pretty marginal, e.g. chain wear, chain noise, efficiency, memories of my dad riding behind me shouting at me if I was cross chaining 😆 (he had read some famous cycling manual from back in the day which said not to).
In general I always aspire to being mechanically sympathetic with my bikes, which is why I don't particularly like 1x when you are stretching the mech and chain to their extremes. Am sure it's designed to tolerate it, but I would much rather use a system well within it's limits. Again, marginal stuff and meaningless in the context of my abilities I'm sure!
Yeah... but you're clearly stronger than me, 44 x 46 is a good bit higher than the 30 x 36 I find myself using quite gratuitously!
Agree, but if was weaker I'd just run a mullet-type setup using a 10-50 with the biggest chainring the mech would take - just don't want to spend that much on cassettes 🙂
Controversial I know (and I may be about to make myself look an idiot again), but is cross chaining really such a terrible thing? Back in 3x9 days Shimano always instructed that your gears should be set up so that you could ride all combinations, but yes, did advise against riding very crossed gears for prolonged periods as it could accelerate wear.
I don't think you're an idiot, modern chains (10 speed onwards) can seemingly put up with more sideloading and deflection (hence 1x is now a viable option).
I'm mostly riding in the 46t, with the 30t acting as bail out range, that means several less severe climbs will cause a bit of cross chaining where there's no absolute need for a 1:1 or lower ratio.
By the same token dropping into the inner ring is not a huge issue if I need to to maintain a sensible cadence.
I think it's easy to forget we used multiple chainrings on all sorts of bikes for a long time and the main benefit was having closer increments in gearing Beyond 1x12/1x13 I think we're at the point now where 1x on Gravel and Road bikes is offering a useful sequential range (discuss) but for a lot of people a closer cassette 2x10/11/12 setup still has some genuine benefits still.
Four of us rented Bianchi gravel bikes last weekend for four days rummaging around Lake Como. Did a mixture of road, gravel and 'probably should have brought a hardtail mountainbike' difficulty level routes. They all had stock 2x GRX, and I have to say I was very impressed. There were a couple of offroad bits where a granny or a bigger tooth count at the back would have definitely helped, but I was very grateful for the smaller chainring. I didn't check, but one option would have been to have sized down the smaller ring a bit for a wider range.
Typically if I was shifting into the big ring, I'd shift one up the block at the back to reduce the jump in ratios, and going the other way shift two harder at the back. Those of us from the days of 3x and 2x will remember that trick - it reduces big ratio jumps.
Oh, and a massive shout to Bikeit Bellagio - a really lovely bunch of people and curators of some mind bendingly good routes.
Ok its a rather high cadence but how fast are you going?
Not all that fast really, a big gear and pedalling really slowly and gently can be just enough to keep the bike rolling along on the flat. Or standing up pedalling transferring body weight to alternate pedals, loose hands, straight back not hunched over, also doesn't need high cadence or masses of energy.
On cross chaining, I've just stumbled across this - https://road.cc/content/feature/cross-chaining-311289
Typically if I was shifting into the big ring, I'd shift one up the block at the back to reduce the jump in ratios, and going the other way shift two harder at the back. Those of us from the days of 3x and 2x will remember that trick - it reduces big ratio jumps.
Di2 can be programmed to do this automatically if you want. When you manually shift into the big ring, the system will auto shift the rear down one or two (depending on programming). Same the other way around. Works on GRX Di2 as well as the road groupsets.
Seeing this again, it occurs to me about 2x setups in principle
- The amount you use each gear would typically look like a standard bell curve - the highest and lowest gears will be used least often, and you'll spend most of your time in the middle gears. Which is also where you'd typically change between chainrings. Which is a flaw.
- But it's all about your chainrings. Size them up a little, and you'll spend more time in the middle/ top of the small chainring gears; size them down a little and you'll spend more time in the middle/ lower of the large chaingring gears.
Also though, my road 2x setup is fine IIRC, I never felt I was changing chainrings too often, so clearly it is fixable! Just for gravel you use a wider spread of those available gear combos
On cross chaining, I've just stumbled across this
I saw that! Just assumed the road.cc crew were reading this thread and thought they would cash in 😎
But it's all about your chainrings. Size them up a little, and you'll spend more time in the middle/ top of the small chainring gears; size them down a little and you'll spend more time in the middle/ lower of the large chaingring gears.
Yeah, I think fundamentally trying to size for every eventuality gets tricky, I'm falling into that trap myself by trying to size for long days out in hills on rough terrain (copious low gears so I'm not over-exerting myself) but also geared to cover the tarmac bits efficiently (i.e. not doing 120rpm just to hold 40km/h etc). Something has to give and it will inevitably be that top end. 44 tooth chainring seems very attractive now if I can bodge the front mech somehow.
I am suprised at folk spinning out on 52 or even 48 tooth chainrings. I can spin to best part of 30 mph on a 36 chainring. Ok its a rather high cadence but how fast are you going?
It's 120rpm, it'd be a far more sustainable 80rpm in 50/11!
Sustainable for sure. But the claim was spinning out. 80rpm is not spinning out.
You won’t be sustaining 120 rpm for very long. I had to ride home in 44x28 for 12 miles and maintained 112 rpm and it was hard work. I can ride with club medium pace on 44x11 and not spin out, even down a hill. But 38x11 is too low for road - only about three useable gears.
correct.
I merely asked how fast someone was riding to spin out on a 52 chainring
correct.
I merely asked how fast someone was riding to spin out on a 52 chainring
I think you misread me (unless someone else mentioned spinning out). I mentioned 52t rings, but said I spun out on an equivalent 46x12. It's kinda a holiday bike for not-cycling holidays, so I often end up with it in some pretty hilly/mountainy places. It gets pretty spinny above about 50kph, and 60+ is definitely ridiculous.