You are just being a grouch…

I have 32 front to 50 rear and use the 50 quite often without slipping out of spinning furiously. And sometimes I still have to walk.

A lot lot depends on where you ride and for how long.

Bigger wheels make a difference to gearing too.

Yep, being a grouch.  Why would you care about gearing on other bikes?  Upset that everything about your bike is now obsolete? :-).

I’ve been away a few years and have just dusted off my 26” Norco Sight.

Found any cracks yet?

So why do modern bikes have such stupid gearing?

Well they don’t do they, they have a similar if not greater range than your old 2×10 set-up and I doubt they are stupid in any way, shape or form.

A 50t cog looks grim and negates, for me, the primary benefit of the ‘one by’ setup. Am I just being a grouch or is it a valid observation?

How does it look grim? It may look slightly out of proportion with dinky wheels, but hardly grim is it?

Progress. By the sounds of it, around the time you stopped riding I was running 34×36 1×10 on my Ibis, which I then bodged to 34×40 and then went 34-42 when 11-speed XT came out. My Whyte T130 came with X01 Eagle 1×12. When I first saw the rumors of it online I thought it was a joke. I mean, 50t seriously? I was even tempted to rip it straight off the Whyte and stick with what I knew. Boy was I glad I didn’t! I don’t like to use the term “game-changer”, but it really is ace! I can still run a 34t chainring and have more gearing for speed and lower gearing for climbing. In fact the one time I’ve run a double in the last 7 years was for a C2C challenge and with Eagle I have more range in a lighter, simpler package.

Besides, I honestly think 11-speed kit from Shimano and Sram is genuinely shit. The Sram stuff just feels cheap and nasty (even the “expensive” stuff) and 11-speed Shimano just feels like it was rushed, XT in particular. Having been a Shimano fan for years, I wouldn’t put anything but Eagle on my bikes these days, despite thinking very much like the OP to start with. You don’t have to run it, and yes, to start with it looks a bit goofy, but try and get used to seeing it and you’ll wonder why you ever doubted it.

When I first saw the rumors of it online I thought it was a joke. I mean, 50t seriously?

I had this discussion with a mate who’s specced a new bike with a 50t cassette.  He’s a singlespeeder and a great climber anyway, so I asked him why on earth he went for it.  He gave me an example of trails where he lives (Scotland) that were so steep even he was maxed out on the nose of the saddle to get up them.

I know of one trail very local to me that is pretty difficult even on 3×9.  I can’t remember having cleared it, but even with one dab I get quite high up on Strava so I don’t think many do.  I’d not expect to clear it in 32/46 unless I was in pretty top form (for me).

Another advantage to 1x is far more space in the BB area and hence less mud gathering.

12 speed !! So last year !!

https://www.bikeradar.com/gear/article/rotor-1×13-groupset-details-specs-52573/

The thing that would concern me is how close the bottom of that derailleur gets to the rocks and sticks on the ground.  Surely they have a longer cage than in the old days and the size of the cassette means that must end up much closer to the ground…?

Put 12 speed on my new build. The weight difference or where it is, is nothing you notice after about 5 minutes riding.

However you do notice how nice a 32/50 is when you’re tired out and there’s a horrible steep grassy climb ahead. Could probably go 34 up front and get a bit more top end but happier to keep a bail out for now.

It doesn’t feel any lower than my previous 2×10 really, never compared the gear inches (think that was 24×36) but it deos feel a whole lot simpler and quieter.

<div class=”bbp-reply-author”>molgrips
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The thing that would concern me is how close the bottom of that derailleur gets to the rocks and sticks on the ground.  Surely they have a longer cage than in the old days and the size of the cassette means that must end up much closer to the ground…?

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That concerns me too. RDs used to have longer cages due to the larger tooth capacity needed of a 3×9 or 3×10 set up but that was dictated by the requirements of being able to pull the chain back enough to take up the slack in the granny ring so the cage was nice and articulated backwards and tucked out of the way (ish).

Now as you say we have these dinner plate sprockets which mean the cage ends up in positions that was probably not even expected back when they were originally designed. Anyone who goes into some very rocky terrain or overgrown foliage in the lowest gears is really risking ripping it off.

I don’t think cage length is an issue. Most people are riding larger wheeled bikes anyway and if you’ve got your chain length correct then the cage angles forward in first gear and not straight down, and when it is angled forward you’re further down the cassette so the clearance is fine. Long cage mechs on 26″ wheeled bikes were bloomin’ close to the ground and it wasn’t a problem back then.

Ok but some people talk about rear mechs as if they are a consumable. I’ve never ripped one off, but then I use 9sp.  Is everyone an oaf, or is it really more of an issue with 11sp?

Re gearing, I am using 1×9 on a 29er with a 30T ring.  On some fast road descents I run out of gear, but I stopped caring about beating 45mph on those when I was a teenager.  Speed on technical fun descents is what I now enjoy and 30t up front is plenty for those.  I can be in the two smallest sprockets on the roads to and from the trail, and as soon as I get over the anxiety that I’ve ‘nearly run out of gears’ it’s not an issue.

So I’m still not convinced of the need for 50T, I’d rather get my low gears by reducing my chainring size.

I like it all.  Done plenty of steep and tight and rocky.

Just got my first 1x bike having come from a triple.
The chain line is cringe worthy and I run out of gears. Not entirely convinced.

The thing that would concern me is how close the bottom of that derailleur gets to the rocks and sticks on the ground.  Surely they have a longer cage than in the old days and the size of the cassette means that must end up much closer to the ground…?

This is a 1×12 Eagle conversion (i.e. 10-50 cassette) that I did on an XS framed 26″ bike:

It doesn’t look too low to my eyes, and certainly much less so than the rear mech on an Islabike Beinn 20, which collect grass like you wouldn’t believe!

The rider reports no problems and, in fact, is completely overjoyed with it. She particularly loves the fact that her gears are now so much simpler – so much so that she reports getting the right gear for the right terrain more often than she used to with the 2×10 that this setup replaced.

(In her particular case, the decision was made based on her having arthritis in her left hand which was making front-mech shifting increasingly difficult, but she says that she would have gone 1×12 regardless having now ridden it for a few weeks)

The mech on my 1×11 (11-46) is folded right back out of the way on the smaller sprockets. On the biggest it is pulled forward at 45 degrees as in the picture above. It is a medium cage as opposed to the long cage I needed to run on my old triple. I don’t see how it is any more vulnerable, probably quite a bit less than a long cage mech on a 26 wheel.

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I had this discussion with a mate who’s specced a new bike with a 50t cassette.  He’s a singlespeeder and a great climber anyway, so I asked him why on earth he went for it.  He gave me an example of trails where he lives (Scotland) that were so steep even he was maxed out on the nose of the saddle to get up them.

The second year of the Dudes of Hazard enduro at kinlochleven more or less coincided with the first splurge of mainstream 1x drivetrains, and the horrible road up into the mamores was basically covered in dead people for whom 1×10 with a 36 was definitely their ideal gear right up til that moment. Basically everyone thinks their setup is great for everything but it just means everything they’ve tried so far, there’s pretty much always something worse coming up.

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