Cyclocross race set up 1×10 with clutched rear mech

For this coming cross season i really want to run

1×10 xx1 style chainring (no chain guide) preferably 110bcd with a clutched rear mech

how can it be done?

and if not i think sram/shimano etc are missing a trick with cross racers as i know local racers are wanting this set up now

Thought 10 speed road shifters needed an mtb 9 speed rear mech which means no clutch.

What onza dog said. I looked into the exact same thing and was disappointed. Closest I got to was old 9spd saint stuff with a short cage but bigger tooth capacity than road stuff. No clutch though. Didn’t go through with it though as old saint stuff is still flippin expensive

Hope are running 1×10 on their bikes

Hope are running 1×10 on their bikes

With a xx1 style chain ring at the front and a clutched rear mech?

Hope run integrated bashguards and catchers,with normal short cage mechs (force) DC runs that anyway.

Im working with a proto type Absolute Black xx1 style ring for road crans as a proto soon,with standard Ultegra mech just to see how I get on.

Will update you as it goes.

Bumpty bump.

Mud jammed between my 1×10 chainring and the bash guard recently got me thinking about 1×10 with a clutch mech and narrow wide chainring recently – would mean I could ditch the bash guard and n-gear jumpstop.

Anyone running 1×10 cyclocross with a narrow/wide chainring and with or without a clutch rear mech? The lack of cable adjuster on MTB mechs is a pain, as in line barrel adjusters for mechs are a faff and spoil the simplicity.

Any tales of success or woe?

yep.. crossjunkie blogged about his experience

http://crossjunkie.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/absoluteblack-single-ring-set-up.html

Thanks. I’d spotted his video before but wasn’t sure what kind of rear mech he was running. Looks like a regular SRAM mech with no clutch from that blog, so that’s good news that he had success and only one dropped chain.

Maybe I’ll give this a shot with my 105 mech over the summer before next cross season. Hmm…

Any more anecdotal evidence?!

Guy in the club here in lufs runs a single ring, bash and chain catcher, I think he runs 10spd shimano up front and the 9spd mtb stuff on the rear (back me up oli racing?). If you have sram stuff why not run the sram clutch mechs (as im running a long cage x7 on my cx bike at the moment for the 1:1) and then run a chain catcher and spaced bash?

I am still going to keep the 2×10 for a long while on my cross bike as its also my road bike and 1×10 for road would be less than ideal.

Can someone explain short cage vs medium cage
(i want to fit a 42t 11:32)

Notice on bike.de they list short cage mechs

I can’t seem to find short cage mechs on crc etc.

You can’t run a short cage on a 42t. You’d prolly have to go long cage on a 42t.

Why not run a front top chain guide if you’re insistant on having 1×10. Doesn’t matter what length rear mech you run then, and you don’t have to run a thick/thin ring

EDIT: Ignore me, thought you meant 42t on the rear. For a 32 again I think you’d need at least a mid cage rear mech. Short cages are designed to work with very close ration blocks, normally either road/tt or there was a fad in DH with running them. For what you want I’d say you want at least a mid cage

Last season I was using a 38t thick/thin CX chainring with a standard Ultegra rear mech on the high tension setting.
11-28 cassette.

Didn’t loose the chain once.

Shimano Zee is short cage and will run an 11-36 fine on a 1x setup.

To the OP, I’m pretty sure that SRAM road shifters and mtb rear mech will work together so you can get the set up you want in that way.

SRAM type 2 mechs work with SRAM road shifters.

This here chain ring works with 110bcd 5 bolt cranks and comes in 42t variety.

Simples

I’ve got shimano road shifters so need a mtb 9 speed mech

mtbmatt. which chainring were you using?

I used a 10 spd Ultegra short cage mech with a 12-36 cassette for the 3 Peaks and that was fine with 39/46 up front, but I don’t know if that would work on all bikes.
To answer the OP, I tried out a narrow-wide ring on my cross bike at the HONC. It was a Wolftooth 42t with 12-25 and the same Ultegra short cage mech. even though the route was really bumpy in places and the chain ended up bone dry, I had no drops at all – I was pretty impressed.

Sram TT500 bar end shifter, SLX rear cassette, X9 type 2 (clutched) mech, great shifting, if a little stiff, no chain device, no drops in 50 miles of Dorset at the weekend with some pretty long, rough descents. Normal, narrow/narrow 38T single speed FSA ring. Also 80 miles of crappy London roads with a normal 48T ring, no drops. I went medium cage in case I put a double on at some stage for touring.

Genesis have SRAM clutch + SRAM shifters on one of their bikes, according to their Face-ache page

clutch mech for CX system, seen this? spacer to make 10spd work as a 9 spd, presumably will work with road 10spd shifters.

Running 1×10 on my CX bike, chain device, shimano STIs with an SLX mech and cassette.
Shifting is proving to be tricky. Perfect at setup (as you’d expect clean cables and all) not been through a lot of muck but shifting is now hit and miss. You normally get a fair amount of leeway with shimano setups, so I’m wondering do 10spd road cassettes have different spacing to mtb? So shifters aren’t pulling quite thr right amount of cable and so that is using up all the tolerance in the system and with slightly gritty cables it has gone wonky.

Or do I need sharper cable cutters and cleaner cable routing?

Here’s a really interesting bike. To demonstrate the versatility of the Fugio, a Reynolds 853 tubed cyclo-cross bike with an oversized 44mm head tube and tapered carbon fork, Genesis brand manager Albert Steward built up this test mule with a 1×10 groupset. He’s paired SRAM Apex shifters and a mountain bike derived SRAM X7 rear mech with a clutch system to keep the chain tensioned, a 42t single ring and a Shimano 11-36t cassette. A square tapered bottom bracket is used to get the desired 47.5mm chainline to keep the gears running sweet.

, I tried out a narrow-wide ring on my cross bike at the HONC. It was a Wolftooth 42t with 12-25 and the same Ultegra short cage mech. even though the route was really bumpy in places and the chain ended up bone dry, I had no drops at all – I was pretty impressed.

excellent.. I’ll try out my ultegra mech first with an 11-32 on the back

Hope run integrated bashguards and catchers,with normal short cage mechs (force) DC runs that anyway.

Not anymore ;-). New bikes are Force 22 CX with custom 42t Hope Retainer ring for road cranks with no catcher. Paul proto’d it and after a few teething problems got it running well.

Easily done, I’ll be running it this coming season.

So:
Sram 10speed doubletap shifters, I’ll gut the left had one, or you can leave it. You can even buy brake lever only units too.
Sram 10 speed type 2 rear mech
Absolute Black, Woolf Tooth, Race face or similar 110bcd NW ring
Choice of 10 speed casette.

I reckon 38ish with an 11-32 would work well.

SRAM already have a 1x CycloCross groupset

http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/ie/en/sram-force-10-speed-shift-brake-lever-set/rp-prod40334

http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/ie/en/sram-force-cx1-11-speed-rear-mech/rp-prod119760

http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/ie/en/sram-force-cx1-brake-lever/rp-prod119761

http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/ie/en/sram-force-cx1-11-speed-crankset/rp-prod119755

Ollie, similar plan to me. I don’t feel the need for 36/46 up front so will just go with a 38 and the 11-28 out back. Waiting to find a 38T chainring though.

I was using an absolute black 38t with 10sp cassette.

Can someone tell me if i can use an 11-32 with a medium cage 9 speed mech?

(this will be with a 42 front ring)

Crossjunkie seems to think i can’t?

Uou could use a 42 and 11-32 but would need a chainguard/keeper of some sort as the 32 cassette means you would likely need a long cage mech, With a long cage mech, the chain tension is insufficient to keep the chain from bouncing, a problem you don’t have with short cage.

I don’t know where crossjunkie is coming from to be honest. Length of cage is dictated by how much slack in the chain it has to take up. If you’re running a triple chainset, you need a chin long enough to wrap round 46T at the front and 30T at the back, but that’s going to flap about if you’re on 22 at the front and 11 at the back, so you need a sprung lever arm (cage) that’s long enought to take upthe slack on small small,

The bigger the difference between potential gear combo’s, the longer arm (cage) you need to move far enough to keep the chain taut on the smallest/smallest combo and still be able to wrap round biggest/biggest.

How strong the spring is is independent. I’d assume they use duifferent strenght springs, but maybe they don’t clutch mech makes this irrelevant anyway.

If you’re on a 1x_ set up, you only need a short cage, because the difference is small – no big changes at the front.

If you think you might be changing front rings (eg. 48T for commuting and road rides, 38T for off road rides, like I do) a medium cage means you don’t have change the chain length, because the cage is long enough to take up the slack on the smaller ring.

There is always This Mod that can be done to the XT clutch rear mechs – It’s meant to be so you can use 9 speed shifters/cassette but that would also allow 10 speed road shifters with anything up to an 11-36

There is always This Mod that can be done to the XT clutch rear mechs – It’s meant to be so you can use 9 speed shifters/cassette but that would also allow 10 speed road shifters with anything up to an 11-36

So I could use a 10 speed road shifter with an xt 10 speed clutch mech?

So I could use a 10 speed road shifter with an xt 10 speed clutch mech?

there an echo in here? 😉
The bodge* reportedly makes 10spd mtb mech work with 9spd mtb shifters
10spd brifter/STIs reportedly work with mtb 9spd mechs
so apparently yes 10spd XT clutch mech will work with 10spd road shifter, dunno if anyone has tried that exact combination tho.

*I’m assuming this german one is similar to the jwicks one I linked to, google translation of the site wasn’t brilliant but it sounds like he also bodges the cable pull of the mech only via a slightly different method

Bumpty bump. Any more real world experience of narrow/wide chainrings on CX bikes WITHOUT clutch mechs?

New 40t RaceFace ring just ordered, and I’ll be pairing it with a new 11spd 105 short cage mech and 11-28 cassette. Wondering if I should ditch the n-gear jump stop and bash guard that I was running for the past few years with regular chain rings. How are people’s setups standing up to CX abuse?

Was going to change my whole set up to SRAM shifters, Type 2 mech and a thick thin ring… 38t 104BCD to fit my XT cranks swapped over from my XC bike for the purposes of getting to use my Stages PM on the CX race bike this winter.

However, money is tight, so I have just ordered the 38t ring for now and plan to test it out this weekend, or before, to see how it copes with chain retention using a plain old 105 rear mech.

Will report back with findings

I’ve been running 10 speed with 11-36 cassette, Surly 110 bcd 40 tooth,9 speed XT rapid rise mech, n-gear stop and 10 Ultegra shifters. Had my first dropped chain in about a year over some really dry, deep rutted, twisty singletrack. Been using Surly stainless steel rings on 3 bikes and never drop a chain, may be they’ve deeper gaps than others?
I imagine it would be ok in a cross race?

How about di2 xtr 1×11 on dura ace di2 hydro shifters? Someone’s bound to do it.

tang

How about di2 xtr 1×11 on dura ace di2 hydro shifters? Someone’s bound to do it.

On a (sensible) budget?

It’s would be a build devoid of budget restraints for sure!!

Will report back with findings

Please do barrykellet.

Birdage – your experience sounds positive, but I see you are running an n-gear jump stop. Are you not running a bash? I’m keen to lose my bash as I find that mud gets jammed between bash and chainring in really muddy, grassy races. Hmm, maybe I should leave the n-gear as a fail safe on the inside, even with a narrow/wide chainring.

pixelmix – Member

Bumpty bump. Any more real world experience of narrow/wide chainrings on CX bikes WITHOUT clutch mechs?

Not on a CX bike, but I’ve found that it’s the chainring that does the hard work with chain retention, the clutch is a bonus- I rode my rigid mtb a few times with the clutch broken, didn’t lose the chain. Not ideal but better than a standard chainring and top guide ever was.

Is it for race use? I reckon that skews the priorities a bit since it changes a chain drop from a tiny inconvenience to a total bollocks.