I’ve never been one for following the trends, far from it, but after a bit of research I’ve been wondering about changing my set up from it’s current 3×9 to 1x”something”. As far as I can tell the benefits of simplicity, de-clutter the crank area (so hard to get the gunk out of the front mech all the time), less chance of chain fouling up and all the rest of it outweigh the loss of the granny ring and outer ring. The frame is a Marin mount vision (2008). It’s not a ‘trail’ bike in today’s 27.5 terms but slapped a hans damp on the front, nobby nic on the back and it’s just fun all the way and that’s surely got to count for something, I’m not getting bogged down in the wheel size faff, I’ve go a nippy HT so this one’s for fun (fast fun 🙂 )
99.99% of the time I’m in the middle ring (32T) and I could probably count the number of times I’ve hit the granny ring on one hand, the outer perhaps on two! I’m pretty light so it doesn’t take much to get up the hills or gather speed on the down!
Is a 1×10 mech with ‘clutch’ absolutely necessary? if that’s the case, and unless I’ve got it wrong in my mind, a move to 1×10 requires pretty much a whole new rear gear system (not to mention the drive ring to something like a race face NW). Just checked and my cassette is a 11-34, my assumption was a 10spd cassette would give a larger inner cog though I notice they still only go up to 34 and 36T which sort of negates their need… Hope do a 40T ring, does anyone use anything like that or does 36T do the job fine?
seems like I’ve found a can of worms and it’s rather entertaining to think of the possibilities once it’s opened!
