And to be fair, elastomer suspension and cantis were the pits.

“djglover – Member

This is just the next fashion thing, like bashguards. They Are Not Needed If You Can Ride A Bike Properly”

What a strange post. You realise that the entire point of 1×9 or 1×10 is dispensing with things That Are Not Needed? And why do bashguards show you Can’t Ride A Bike Properly? Do you never catch a chainring? Or is the sort of riding where ground clearance runs out Not Riding A Bike Properly?

_tom_ – Member
‘…a light, 3 speed hub gear would be the ultimate set up…’
Same here, want to get something like that for my road bike eventually, although it might be hard finding one that’s 120mm spaced or whatever track dropouts are!

The S-A S-RF3 is available in OLDs 108, 117, 127mm. I have one on my general purpose Pompino.

richcc – Member
What I’d like is the aforementioned 3 speed sturmey archer with 6 bolt disc mount

What you want is the S-A CS-RK3 and the bonus is it has a cassette freehub so you can also run a derailleur and have a silly amount of gears. Available in black or silver.

I got rid of my big ring a few years ago and use a 34t ‘middle’, a 22t granny ring, 11-34 9 speed cassette and a home-made bash ring (which has had some bashing). The granny ring is a steel Blackspire Chuck ring which has lasted for a long time.

Removing the big ring gives a usefully improved ground clearance for rocky trails and logs.

I don’t use the granny ring very often, but I can’t see any reason why I should totally remove it. It hardly adds much weight and does give the option of a couple of lower gears (fitness not great at the moment).

Aristotle – removing the granny also removes the front mech, cable and shifter. Add a few grammes back in for the chain device, but most people end up saving 350+ grammes, which is pretty significant.

I only weigh 60kg so I have found that bikes feel really hefty above 28lb, so I do tend to keep an eye on weight. I’ve added an uppydowny seatpost and fatter tyres recently so any loss is a bonus.

–

The main reason I’m interested though is simplicity. I find I don’t really bother with biggish gears, and I’m definitely a spinner.

Once I get paid, I think I’ll take a punt on the Widgit chainring in a 28t size – then maybe add 10sp once we get the other side of the winter.

I’m open to it not working, but I fancy giving it a go. Once you look at the gear ratios and you realise that a double and bash only really gives 13 usable gears, it does seem a lot of faff to have all that extra kit for those 3 or 4 extra gears.

I’m also interested in how people get on with the Alfine 11 and how high a torque it can cope with. I don’t want to give up my granny gear, but I am pretty happy (at least in theory) giving up pedalling above 22mph.