1x Roadbike ….. missing the point?

So I’ve decided that over winter I’m going to build up a dedicated roadbike.

Living in East Anglia we don’t really have hills so I was looking at building a 1x bike.

All of my other bikes are 1x or even just 1 so the thought of going back to a front derailleur seems odd.

With the right ratios will I use a 2x set up in a more efficient manner – I’m thinking keeping a steady cadence? I’m a bit of a masher when it comes to pedalling – I could probably get away with three gears on or off road!

Anyone run a 1x road bike that isn’t a gravel bike in disguise? 😉

Mine is 11-42 with a 46 up front and it works a treat.

It does have a motor too mind you 🙂

🙂

My Camino is currently 42T 11-42 and maybe use 4 gears in that range.

My Day One is running 42×17 fixed but I’ve not tried that on anything much longer than a run to the shops.

I used to for a bit. But wasn’t a fan. I had a Rival set up with 44 tooth chainset and 11-36 cassette (I think on the cassette as it was about 4 years ago).
It was on a beaten up commuter, for normal commutes it was fine, approx 8 miles each way, relatively flat with the odd short sharp incline (bridges over busy roads). However I didn’t like it for any longer rides or for fast club rides. When my winter road bike was off the road I’d avoid using the commuter because of the gearing. It never really felt in the right gear, as a disclaimer I used to run 53-39 and 11-28 on the summer bike and I’m a bit of a lower cadence style rider. I used to spin out the 44-11, but I spin out a 50-11 fairly regularly (I just can’t ride in excess of 110 rpm for any length of time, so any descent or fast flat section I’d be out of gears)
If you don’t mind gaps in the gearing and happy to spin at a higher cadence then you might be fine. Living where you live also seems like it could be ideal.
I don’t think I’d do it again, unless I wanted to lose the derailleur to fit wider tyres.

1×1 here, if you’ve no hills why not try a fixie?

I would have a 1x road bike (have a 1x gravel that I do a lot of road on which works great!) EXCEPT if I were proper racing, or even Zwift racing, where it’s nice to have really close ratios

where it’s nice to have really close ratios

Not having had a proper road bike before this is the bit that I have no experience of.

Are the front ratios geared (pardon the pun) to operate like that? Not that 24/36/48 didn’t achieve that BITD 🙂

It will be fine but it depends a bit on your background – roadmen tend to place a lot of store in the bike running like a Swiss watch. A gappy cassette is just a clunky monstrosity from this point of view and cannot be tolerated, especially as it’s a solution in search of a problem for road riding really.

I’ve never done much serious roadying so genuinely would not GAS about this outside of a race. I can understand it, though – it’s just you, the bike and the road and any little sub-optimal things you wouldn’t even notice on the dirt get amplified.

thinking keeping a steady cadence

If this is important to you then opt for a narrow range cassette and 2X.

Horses for courses and all that but I’ve found that on the road with 1X my cadence suffers and I loose speed, I’m a spinner rather than a big gear pusher.

Just use a close ratio cassette as you won’t be needing the dinner plate rear cogs. I would go for an 11 – 23 as the gear spacing is 11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,21,23

So basically just as good as having a double front as until you get over 19t they are as close as you can get and you won’t be using the 19 and above anyway. Something like a 50t front ring would give a range of 52 to 110 gear inches with a 29mph cruising speed in top gear

I have typical 2x road gearing (11-25 or 28 on the back, which I suppose some might call wide)

I virtually never shift only 1 sprocket but I’m not really aware of a “best” cadence for me anyway – it’s definitely not a really noticeable narrow sweet spot

If it’s really flat then you don’t need a double up front. Stick a decent sized chainring on with a road cassette on the rear and off you go. Most of my road riding was done between home in Northampton and work in Milton Keynes with a 50/34 up front and an 11-28 on the rear. The 34T was never used as it’s pretty flat here.

I run 1 x on one road bike, and 2 x on the other. The absolute range is almost identical (SRAM AXS Mullet 10-50 on the 1x and 10-33 on the 2x), but obviously the gear jumps are bigger.

I was expecting more of an issue with the gear jumps, but whilst riding on my own it isn’t an issue as I don’t really notice myself slowing down or speeding up slightly if I shift a single cog. It can be an issue riding with a bunch where maintaining the speed of the bunch is more important and you can sometimes find yourself in between gears.

On balance the aesthetic and simplicity implications of 1x are nice, but front shifting is so sophisticated these days that on balance I think I would stick with 2x if I only had one road bike. Gravel is a different matter, and the simplicity of 1x probably wins out in that situation, but since you specifically wanted to know about road bikes, my vote goes to 2x. Being in just the right goldilox gear matters more on the road and 1x is perhaps just too compromised in that regard.

Having multiple chain rings just allows you to have closer ratios with your cassette for a given range – splitting the range by more gears so closer steps between gears. But if you’re mostly riding flat roads you don’t need the range so can close up your ratio’s.

Alot of myth around this. Ignoring MTB style cassettes – this is a road bike after all – you can probably get away with a 32 or 34T road cassette for most of your flat riding. I live in a hilly area have a 34t cassette and compact 2x crank. All fine for rides in the hills but if I’m on a flatter ride then I tend to stay in the bigger chainring and the 34t cassette is fine without the need for the smaller chainring. The biggest change in cadence I find between gears is less than 10 rpm so doesn’t feel like big jumps between gears and perfectly fine.

Ratio’s can be too close such that if you’re going into a head wind and can’t maintain cadence in a gear so change down you want to actually feel like you’ve changed down. If ratio’s are too close then you’re having to change a couple or 3 gears before you feel a benefit and you’ve just wasted a third of your cassette range. Most people can tolerate a 8 – 10 rpm change in cadence with no problem.

Some cassettes, like Sram, vary the tooth count between gears, so the smallest 6 or so sprockets are close ratio, but the highest 4 or so are more spaced out – you don’t notice the change in cadence on a hill in lower gears as much as on the flat trying to maintain a higher speed.

I started training my cadence while in lockdown, and a gappy cassette does make a big (and irritating) difference. If you live somewhere fairly flat I’d definitely look to a fairly close ratio on the back.

FWIW I find if I keep the cadence nice and high it definitely helps my knees, I’ve got a chronic tendonitis in my left knee that starts to play up if I grind the gears for too long.

I personally tend to agree with the ‘solution in search of a problem’ philosophy. My slightly aged Ultegra front shifting is comically fast and light, and I don’t really believe you save any weight or money either once you factor in big/ugly/expensive cassettes and rear mechs.

But also think that if you’re not used to having 2x perhaps you would never miss it, and for winter riding I do kind of enjoy wheeling the singlespeed out so I don’t need to think about shifting when wearing big waterproof mitts!

On balance the aesthetic and simplicity implications of 1x are nice

Not disagreeing as I guess both points are subjective, but I prefer the aesthetics of smaller cassettes and rear mechs, and have had more trouble maintaining good shifting on my 1x setups than on my 2x (I guess because the mech is being asked to ‘stretch’ over a bigger range of cogs?)

I use a 34-50 and an 11-23 in the Chilterns (13-28 in winter), should probably get a slightly wider cassette as my cadence drops to about 75 on some climbs (excluding the exceptions like “Vomit hill”).

+1 for a fixie on solo rides though, it’s a great way to get a more varied workout as it forces you to treat what hills there are as intervals. The odd pace makes it difficult in a group though unless you’re considerably quicker on a normal bike.

Depends where you ride.

I’m near Derby – flat Trent floodplain one side all the way to the North Sea, Peak District to tthe other.

Last winter quite a few in our club bought 1x gravel bikes as winter road bikes – changed the tyres and fitted mudguards. I don’t think any of them really thought it was ideal, lost top end gears for fast group rides, or low end gears for climbing, or a bit of both, and some found the gap in gears hard to get the right cadence.

Obviously if your only riding is a very specific range of hills or flat, you can tweak the gears to fit. I’m 1x for MTB, 2x subcompact for gravel type trails and 2x compact on my road bike.

I have been running a Rival set-up 11-42 on the back with either a 42, 44 or 46 upfront. Though noticing the bigger jumps compared to my other bike (50/34 x 11-30) I cannot say it was a big issue that you don’t get used to. I’ve recently swapped to a 42 x 11-40 GRX set-up (Rival now for sale 😉) and again I can’t say I have issues when pushing the pace in a group.

Living in East Anglia

Single-speed road bikes are beautiful things…

I don’t really believe you save any weight or money either once you factor in big/ugly/expensive cassettes and rear mechs.

My scales disagree with you to the tune of about 300g on my MTB.

I need lots of gear range for climbing but if I lived in East Anglia I’d go 1x. Cos why not? I wouldn’t go singlespeed though because there are headwinds and rough roads and junctions.

My Genesis Flyer is easily my most ridden bike. It’s a metallic red one from the Bert era though James. Can’t remember why I sold my original white one from back in your day. Probably to buy beer.

If I was reasonably fit and riding somewhere relatively flat, I’d be fitting a 50T (ish) front with close ish out the back.

Would find out relatively quickly if I needed the smaller front ring as well and then just add bits as needed. Personally I think the wide spread of a big span block at the rear is too much for a road bike where smooth and easy transitions between gears are appreciated.

For ultimate ease of use you could always look to Di2 or similar and set it up to use the gears in size order, irrespective of ring positions. My OH has her road bikes set up like this and it works like a dream, changing up or down and not noticing where the front is.

Probably to buy beer.

Worth it. I still have my 725 Flyer with Dura-Ace track cranks and some top end Chosen hubs. I’d ride it more in winter if it had deep-drop brakes and guards, which was the smart thing Bert did to the recent ones after all that fixie fashion stuff died down.

I like it, but I just potter about, no racing or chain gangs

Force 10-42 on 46

For ultimate ease of use you could always look to Di2 or similar and set it up to use the gears in size order, irrespective of ring positions. My OH has her road bikes set up like this and it works like a dream, changing up or down and not noticing where the front is.

I like the sound of this.

Does it make the LH shifter redundant unless you wanted to do a manual change?

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Works for me. Rival shifting, ethirteen xcr 9-34 cassette. I ride plenty in groups and solo and it works just fine.

Surprisingly the cassette is a particularly good performer. Quiet and faultless shifts up and down. This gave me a 380% range for 270g, making the whole thing a very light group set.

Edit – with a 40t ring I get very similar range to a compact and 11-28. 1.18 bottom gear, 4.44 top (vs 1.21 and 4.54).

Does it make the LH shifter redundant unless you wanted to do a manual change?

You can program buttons to do whatever you want. I’ve set my lasses di2 up sequential, but with the buttons on the hood tops to change the front mech up/down. That way she can hit the bail switch in an emergency.

I lock out my front mech on the winter bike when the clocks go back until the clocks go forward in the spring, so that my winter volume rides on the road are generally done at a higher cadence on average.

I love a winter bunch ride but always try and resist the temptation to be a winter bunch race hero, its much easier to do that if your max ratio is 39×25.

Doesn’t feel right to me to be pushing a big gear in cold weather, and smaller gears and higher cadence make me feel like the work I’m doing is more definitely at the aerobic end of things, which is what I want to do over the winter months. Usually got CX racing and winter track league for my eyeballs-out needs.

Plus, getting the 53 ring back when the clocks go forward and the weather’s better feels awesome.

I like the sound of this.

Does it make the LH shifter redundant unless you wanted to do a manual change?

If you fancy as it can be made to do what you want through software. I encouraged my OH to leave the shift buttons and set-up as if it was a mechanical system as she will tend to revert to norm in what could be deemed an emergency situation.

Not quite sure what that would be on a push bike but best not to find out the hard way.

The right shifter is up and down as ‘normal’ except it cycles through the block and front rings to give 20+ gears. The left will still rise/drop the front if needed for above scenarios.

Hers also has buttons on top of the shifters which are programmed to cycle through the Garmin screens.

Depends if you want non essential toys I suppose, and can justify the expense.

I have a 1x gravel and my mate has 2x. On my own its not an issue as i’m quite a chilled out rider, but with someone else I find i’m running out of gears on descents and any increase in chainring size would knacker me on the climbs.

If where i lived was flattish id go singlespeed (if on my own) or have as big a range as possible (if riding in a group)

Doesn’t work for me. I find that 90% of the time I’m using the last 2 cogs on a rather expensive cassette and front chainring all the while at a bad chainline. Switching to a 2* allowed me to reduce the cost of the cassette, reduce the cost of the chainrings and get more life from both. Total weight penalty? 90g I can also now pedal over 55kph and still pull my daughter (3yr) in a fully laden Chariot up the hills. 1* was compromised on both ends. For a gravel bike it’s fine and I use much more of the cassette, but even then, when I hit the road sections, I find myself shifting about trying to find a comfortable gear for my cadence and speed. In the end, I often have to modulate speed to achieve a nice cadence and feel comfortable. This is much less of a problem on 2* with an 11-34 cassette.

When I was racing, more often than not it was 1x:

Road racing – 50 chainring and 11-23 cassette – if you couldn’t get up the hills in those gears you weren’t getting anywhere.

CX – 39/40 inner ring – your front mech would be immobilised after a lap and shifting would probably result in a mud-jammed transmission

I’ve done a little bit of riding on the fens – only needed 2 gears – one for upwind and the other for downwind!

All my riding at present on a gravel bike with 40 chainring and 11-42 cassette – rode over to Ballater via the Lecht and back the other day, so quite glad of a 42 sprocket!

I’d love to give it a go, the worry for me wouldnt be getting up hills or spinning out but rather being able to easily regulate my speed in a group.

You may be able to get away with a 1x road bike, but will it prove harder and more expensive to source the parts?

Is it worth the hassle of trying to be different? 1x is just right for MTBs, and 2x is just right for road bikes, IMO.

Is it worth the hassle of trying to be different?

I don’t want to be different I’m just after the correct tool for the job. I also don’t particularly want to re learn what front mechs do 🙂

I do like the idea of a sequential Di2 set up so 22 speed 🙂

Having it on my gravel bike is enough to convince me that I don’t want it on my road bike. Range is fine – I actually want a wider range on my gravel bike – but I don’t like the gaps, and I don’t like the chain noise in the bottom gears.

I just can’t see any advantage to 1x on a road bike, and if I’m honest, I’d probably be happier with 2x on my gravel bike.

My experience of fitting and maintaining front derailleurs for previous generation Ultegra and 105 on my 2 bikes is that it takes under 30 mins to install (most of which is watching the GCN how to video) and they are both still working perfectly 5 years later without even having to use the barrel adjuster.

I had no issue with a 3T in the Dales on a test ride, SRAM AXS with a 12 speed cassette. Can’t remember what the ratios were but it went up hills the same as my Canyon (52/36 and 11-30) and never felt undergeared on the flat.