1×11 viable for road bike?

as said, for most of the miles I do the chainline is better on 1x than on a double.

You are in the middle part of the cassette, with a straight chain, at 15-18mph

Whereas on a double I’d be on the big ring, at the top end of the cassette, with a crossed-ish chain.

Plus you wear the cassette more evenly too, as you use all of it, whereas on a double I’d hardly touch the smaller cogs.

Obviously a stronger, faster rider may be different in this respect 😉

I’m just about to finish a 1×11 winter bike build (yes, just in time for spring) and I’ve gone for a 44t chainring and 11-32 cassette. Currently ride 39/53 and 12-28 so the 1×11 setup gives me an ever-so-slightly lower gear but I’ll lose some top end (which doesn’t really bother me – I’m quite capable of freewheeling down hill!). Hoping the 11-32 cassette will mean none of these big gaps between gears that people seem to fear with 1×11 set-ups…..?

Because I’m stuck at work bored and waiting for a computer to do something I bunged some numbers (based on a quick trawl of sheldon brown and park tool for crank and cassette chainlines) into excel.

Defining a better chainline as ‘smaller difference between front and rear chainlines’

If I put a single chainring on the same chain line as the inner on a double, I have better or the same chainline as the best of the double in all but the smallest (highest gear) three sprockets.

The difference in chainline between single ring and small sprocket at that point is about 13mm (or about 1.9deg on 400mm stays).

That’s somewhere in between being in the big ring on the double and sprockets 6 & 7 (1 being smallest) and I’m sure plenty of people are happily riding around in those sorts of gears with no problem.

What do you think is the benefit to the chain in longevity of no longer having to do the front shift, which is a big jump under load?

Besides the theory- plenty of people do ride around with 1x setups and cross chaining with minimal fire and explosion.

Early adopter here. Been using 1X11 for four years now. Using a Shimano 105 compact chain set with a 110 bcd Hope narrow wide front ring. 40 tooth. 25-12 rear cassette.

Not a large gap in gears and you can get over nearly everything hill wise over here and you have to be a beast to spin out 40×12 for any length of time.

ps. Normal medium cage shimano 105 rear mech.

I never seen a road 1x setup, but I’m presuming the chainline is a bit ropey as road bike chainstays are a good 20mm shorter than on mountain bikes.

Yes but the front chainline is much lower on a road bike meaning it’s more or less centered on the rear cassette. On an MTB the need for tyre clearance pushes the chainstays and thus the chainrings further out, so standard MTB 1x chainline is a fair way off centre on the cassette, leading to rubbish chainline in the lowest gears.