Ok, so it’s becoming obvious that a 32-tooth chainring is a bit too much for my old only-riding-once-a-week legs. So I can fit a 30. Easy. But do I REALLY need to remove 2 links from my chain? Or will the clutch on my derailleur happily take up the slack? It’s an X01 setup.

well you might get away with it* as it’s only 2 teeth, but do your REALLY not have the time to just remove a couple of links and do it properly?

*depends how baggy your chain is already, what length cage the mech is and if it’s hardtail or full sus with funny chain growth issues, alhtough that’s more an issue for a chain being too short thant too long.

Fwiw I went from a 34 to a 30 on my fs and the the mech (xx1) couldn’t cope.

For 2 teeth you’d only have to remove 1 full link too.

I thought SRAM said that you don’t need to do that on the 11sp setups. The idea that you can swap chain rings for conditions and riding.

Well, amedias, my thinking was to do as little as possible to f*ck anything up (as well as doing as little as possible). Have a slight paranoia that the chain on a 11-speed setup has to do an AWFUL lot of flexing to get up and down that block and if I could avoid weakening it (by splitting it) I would. Bike is FS. I was hoping someone would answer “I did it and it was fine…”

my thinking was to do as little as possible to f*ck anything up (as well as doing as little as possible)

gotcha, laziness I can identify with 😀

I was hoping someone would answer “I did it and it was fine…”

problem wit that is that just because it was fine for them doesn’t mean if will be for you, as per my original post it will depend on how baggy your chain is already and cage length mostly.

ie: if you’re already running a bit long becuase of lots of chain growth or having left enough for a 34t ring then going todown to 30 and not shortening *might* cause you problems.

But someone else already running the chain as tight as can be on a hardtail could chime in and say it worked for them.

Only way to be sure on your bike is to check and measure everything, could always give it a go and see how you get on and then shorten later if needs be if you really don’t want to split it.

As long as you’re using a split link to re-join it then splitting the chain will have no impact on it’s strength at all as you won’t be re-using any outer plates.

Well, there’s certainly no excess of chain at present; all nice and tight on the current 32. And I *assume* that the Switch Infinity doesn’t produce an excess of chain growth as it cycles both up and down during the suspension’s movement. I’ll give it a gland take a chain splitter on the ride with me…

I asked this a couple of days ago and someone quite rightly pointed out that althought you’re losing 2 teeth, because the chain only wraps round half the chainring the ‘chain path’ is only one tooth less. The consensus was if the chain is already on the long side then take a link out, but if currently ok then leave it. I left mine without any problem (so far).

Cheers, Ape.