Single ring on a road bike, curious case of n-1

Interesting discussion. I ride mainly SS so am used to varying cadence and don’t mind the gap. 1x on road gets rid of my stupid macho tendency to stay in the big ring when I should really be on the small.

I have a pair of road tyre shod wheels with 11-36, and some Crests with Nanos on 11-40, and a 40t chainring (with a 38t in the cupboard too).

It certainly is interesting, some useful points and other not so (as to be expected on here).

Really like the single ring on the CX bike you see and finding it hard to justify another bike (in my own head).

One variation I have thought of is to get a bike with a. CX double and run a single ring for CX races (the only drop barred riding I do between September & January) and then re-fit the double and mech for roadie stuff and summer CX’y times.

Well it’s a cheap enough experiment to try out.

I was thinking the other day, imagine how cool it would be to have three different sized chain rings in your collection to go with my ten speed cassette. I mean, that just blew my mind. No matter what the situation, from 2mph muddy spinny climbs to 30mph on road, I’d have a nice spread of 3-4 close ratios to choose from.

Then I thought, if only someone made a device to enable all three of these chainrings to be fitted to the bike at once! That would be epic! I could just stop and move the chain from one chainring to another without needing to carry the spare chain rings in my camelback with an Allen key.

Then! And then! I know, it’s CRAZY but bare with me. THEN I dared to dream big. Imagine a device where not only could all three chainrings be fitted at once (I know, it’s still amazing me too) but then you could switch between them ON THE FLY!!!! INSANE!!!!!!

So I googled such a fantastical setup and it seems stacker boxes in sheds up and down the country are rammed with these amazing machines- but a bunch of cool kids said they were rubbish so now manufacturers rarely even bother selling them.

Idiots 😀

#tripleandproud

^ Oh OK then, in the OP’s position you’d just buy another bike, a road bike with a triple, and not even try it. Fair enough.

richardthird – Member

Interesting discussion. I ride mainly SS so am used to varying cadence and don’t mind the gap. 1x on road gets rid of my stupid macho tendency to stay in the big ring when I should really be on the small.

90% of my riding at the moment is on my fixed road bike but when I grab my geared tourer to do the shopping or carry bigger parcels home from work I get constantly infuriated by the ‘huge’ ratio gaps in its 11-34 9speed cassette. Id probably go apocalyptic if my nice road bike was like that. Whats the point in having gears with all their weight and faff* if my choices are still to struggle or spin.

*its not a faff though is it, I dont think ive ever had an issue with a road or tourer front mech. Maybe in CX it could clog up but not on road.

Lol! Since when did the OP have any bearing on a threads content 😀

I would recommend going back to a double or triple for all situations to cut down on fannying around time and to limit the occasions when the correct ratio is at home in the shed yes.

i thought 1x was all a bit pointless and stupid untill i lent my mate my new fatbike recently and he changed the front gear on a hill, got chain suck, and pretty much destroyed the aluminium chainstay/frame. My message: if you are ever going to lend a mt bike to an inexperienced cyclist – remove the front mech.

Meanwhile, some people just remove the front mech and run the bike as a 1×10 or 1×11, but keeping two rings up front, and then if they really need to change the front, they do it by hand. (i.e. one ring for day trips, another for loaded touring.)