It was serious.

I don’t have the mechanical gift or time to be faffing around with chain lines and spacers. I just need it to work when then bike goes in the car for a 2hr race.

I don’t want to be without a 42 up a steep hill or having the chain drop off the cassette mid race. I don’t get that now on my 2 x 10, so I fear from the above and the links to other threads if I swap it over I’m about to inherit a load of issues.

Looks to me like it’s all going in the classifieds at the moment.

I had a fairly logical route into 1x. 3×9 with 44/32/22 11-32, replaced big with bash and middle with 36, 2×9, back to 32 middle, then 2×9 with 11-34, ignored granny for a while and realised I didn’t really need it, 1×9, 1×10 11-36, then went from 32 to 33 to 34t ring. Mostly made the changes which required buying replacement parts when the old parts were worn out.

Maybe this is too much of an engineer’s way to look at it but if you’re like a big Diesel engine and only produce power over a narrow rev range you’ll need lots of gears. If you’re like a good petrol engine you’ll produce power over a wide range of rpm (cadence) then you won’t need as many gears.

What sort of pedaller you are doesn’t come down to fitness but to personal physiology and how you ride/train. For a rider of my middling fitness I can grind a big gear uphill slowly and spin a small gear downhill very fast, so unexpanded 1×10 works fine for me.

Nothing in there convinces me to make the change. Like I said, it sounds to me like all I’d be doing is upgrading my faff level.

Great. For Sale then.

You can easily pedal a comfy cadence at 20mph with 32-11, so how much road riding above 20mph does some people’s mountain biking involve exactly?

What’s a comfy cadence? That sounds like a lot of frantic leg spinning to me.

I do need to work on getting my cadence higher particularly on the road bike.
But I can not easily spin at 20 mph on a 32-11.

This is my fatest ever ride on a MTB. I was coming back from somewhere completely on the road and I was probably quite wind assisted. And some was downhill.

link to Ride

This is on a 29er so already the bike is geared higher. But I have a 42 front / 11 rear.

I have managed to average 17.6 mph, there are periods (on the flat) where im consistently getting 18-19 mph there is no way I would have managed to do this on a 32-11.

I hear alot of people saying they can easily get 20mph on a MTB, but I very rarely managed to consistently average 20mph on my road bike !

Hmmm.

1×11 transmission is going cheap perhaps not worth selling. Looks like theres no harm in trying it but keeping hold of the 2×10 just in case. I’m going from SLX to XT also so there is some performance / weight saving to be had assuming it works.

Trouble is Glasgowdan for me on my fatty a 32t ring is too big I’d want a 30t or even 28t for the low gear it gives and then that would leave me with a poor high gear. And I can’t use a 10t small cog on my hub. So it’s no good for me.

20 mp on SS

Thanks for posting this is good to see real evidence.

So I take back alot of what I am saying.

Im unable to say why Im not able to achieve this my self.

I find myself riding at too low a cadence on my Road bike too,
I do try to match my pedal stroke to to the rider in front but I will to return to a lower cadence quite easily. Some days Im better than others.

This may be one of the reasons Im unable to take to 1x. Its actually the higher gears I often miss.

That ride was on 2.3 street tyres @ 45psi or so, so the speed itself is nothing to boast about! It was more to show that @ 18mph with that gearing it’s around 100rpm and it didn’t feel uncomfortably high – all my geared bikes are 1x and part of the reason I undergeared the SS was to train my legs to spin better. Flat pedals too btw, not clipped in.

ETA: 18mph on 42/11 on a 29er 2.3 tyre is 54rpm

I imagine the chain will be different. Might work but probably be rough.

anyone feeling the need to run a lightweight chain guide with 1×11 XT? am wondering whether if its needed or not (general trail riding, not too much hardcore stuff apart from a couple of enduro races).

I’ve decided to keep mine and try it out – although I won’t sell on the 2 x 10 just yet.

I think a combo of a long chain stay 29er and the fact I should be able to put a 1.5mm spacer behind the cassette should help things.

I also think that that the chances of me back pedalling when changing up to / already in the 42 about to climb a steep hill are fairly minimal, especially now that I’m aware of the issue, and especially when racing.

So, Saturday afternoon will see the Oil filled Rad on in the mancave…

I’ve bought a (cheap, on offer) narrow wide ring in preparation to go 1x at some point, but it’s sounding like a lot of faff to get it to work well, lots of variables.

I’ve got 2×10 (non clutch) XT/deore on my Scandal, 24/36 & 11-36 – it just works flawlessly.

Is 1x perceived as better/having more advantages on full sussers?

A bit, a little, some all quantified amounts. I’ll stick with a chain as my bike won’t go that we’ll on the flat or uphill without one. Most people do a good run chainless as it really pushes you to carry that extra 10%

Again I’ll take the clutch mech and thick thin. To make a bike work all round you have to compromise things.

Well, done. And I lost over 1/2lb (275g) at the same time – SLX to XT as well. Setting up seems to be a tad more faff but hey, it’s done.

I too suffer from the chain falling down two cogs if back pedalling. I’m PF bottom bracket so when that’s chained I’ll see if it can be done with the spacer removed to assist.

However, I went for a practice spin, including a steep slippery hill which required the 42, and as long as you keep pedalling the chain drop isn’t an issue. TBH if it was slippery and steep enough to stop the bike in a race I’d probably run on to flat anyway.

I’m happy so far, but need a real ride and a race to test it.