Has anyone tried to see if an oval chainring will shift with a front derailleur on a 2×11 system? Specifically an absolute black 34T in this case. I’d imagine if it did shift, then it’s likely to be pretty rough (if at all?).

I’ve been chasing out some issues with a knee, and reports suggest an oval chainring might reduce some of the ‘hot spot’ loads applied by evening out some of the pedalling impact. I’m not looking for any cures as it’s a systemic issue, but every little might help, and I’m curious to test this option out, if it will even work at all.

1x drive system is not an option I’m willing to go back to for huge number or reasons, so please try not to vent too much in that direction.

I doubt there are any ramped oval rings and I can’t really see how it would work.

I haven’t found any ramped ones, but was curious if a normal one will run between the two rings (rather than messing about experimenting, I was checking if anyone had been there…)

Rotor make ramped oval rings. My wife had some to try out for a while (on a 2×10 drive train), the main issue she found with them was that the shifting was slow. I spent ages trying to get them work smoothly on her bike, but the interaction of the chainrings and the front mech meant they would only shift in one position in the cranks rotation, and wouldn’t always shift on the first attempt. On the road a few people seem to use them without problems, but they didn’t seem great on a mtb.

I physically couldn’t get it to shift off a 34T oval narrow wide ring when I tried it on my bike. I wasn’t planning on doing it, was just 1/2 way through putting the 2x setup on the bike when I thought I’d give it a go, I also couldn’t get it to shift onto it reliably, falling off at least 75% of the time

There are oval double rings on Ebay called Doval. They come from south korea. They are really well made and function brilliantly. I usually get mine in around 1.5 weeks.