Two Wheelsets Gravel/Road (corresponding drivetrain?)

So I’ve decided to do the thing I always say doesn’t work and build a second set of “road” wheels for my Gravel bike ahead of next winter.

The idea being that a usable road bike with guards and gears is just a wheel swap away rather than getting my nice road bike mucky or having draggier Gravlly tyres when I want to get the tarmac miles in.

The Current setup (38t N/W with 11-40 cassette) works well enough as a general purpose, more off than on-road gravel bike but is a little under geared at the top end and the steps between gears are a little bit too big on the road,

Alongside this I’m strongly considering swapping from 1×10 to 2×10 (Already have the levers, which is the pricey part of the equation) but I’m just a little up in the air on chainring/cassette choices.
Should I go with something more Gravelly say 46/30 cassette or Road compact 50/34 and for either wheelset would it be sensible to just tweak the cassette choice to suit i.e. 11-36t for the Gravel wheelset and 11-32 for the road?

Or do I just fit a 42T N/W ring and the 11-46t cassette I’ve already got going spare and accept even bigger ratio jumps when road riding but get plenty of range to suit all conditions?

Thoughts and strongly held opinions please…

What’s the ratio of road/gravel the bike will do? Will you be riding solo or in a bunch?

If it’s just the odd solo jaunt on the road then I’d probably just accept the compromise to keep the bike sweet off-road. The only time I find gear ratio gaps a real problem is bunch riding or doing intervals.

Of course it sounds to me like you have almost enough bits to build a winter road bike. You’ve got some gear levers so you’re pretty much there.

Did the two wheelsets thing (as well as having two chainrings for road vs off road) and I don’t bother doing it anymore! Others mileage may vary but I found the faff of swapping wheelsets and the cassette (to keep wear even) to just not be worth it for odd rides. I have tyres that are enough of a ‘fast/grippy/light/tough’ compromise (for me!) to do all year round for probably 90% of what I use that bike for and a set of big slicks if I know I’m going to be doing a fair bit if road for a while.

Swapping chainrings was something i could never be bothered to do in the end!

Just realised you’re using ten speed. Depending on your wheel budget could you use that to add clicks instead so you can have a bit more range with gaps you’re happier with?

Very happy with my 2x 31/48 front and 11-34 rear on my 11spd GRX. Ride with a mate on the road frequently and the only time I get left for dead is on the climbs, he is a lot smaller, lighter and possibly fitter than me and runs a conventional compact roadie set up…… If I did more off road gnarly bikepacking I’d look at adding a few teeth to the rear cassette for long, loaded uphill slogs.

On road I’m quite sensitive to changes of cadence and find that the above seems to work in most scenarios.

Never hit anything off road yet which would be easily solved by a wider, lower range, traction usually fails before legs going uphill. This is mainly SE England, so proper hills and rocky stuff may have different requirements.

Edit. I’d add if I spin out at 48/11 it’s usually downhill and I’m at my comfort limit/ verging on terrified. I don’t ride in chain gangs…

50/34 and 11-36 would give you a pretty similar bottom gear (actually slightly lower) than you have now, and some pretty sensible high gears for tarmac.

What’s the ratio of road/gravel the bike will do? Will you be riding solo or in a bunch?

Probably 50/50 come winter and Road rides will be both solo and with mates but the summer bike has already come out before the weather was really right this spring.

The road wheels won’t be getting used during summer, just winter. This winter just gone I’ve been out with the road group on the current 1x setup and while it’s been usable road tyres and more/closer gears would definitely improve things, it wasn’t really the bottom gear but the overall range and the tyres really weren’t ideal.

On the summer bike I merrily out climb the lot of them most rides, on the gravel bike the tables were turned

For gravel I’m mostly happy with 1×10 but for loaded trips a lower gear would be nice hence me thinking more like a ‘sub-compact’ double with an 11-36, 48/31 sounds good, I assume I’d specifically need a grx front mech to work with a 17t jump?

Of course it sounds to me like you have almost enough bits to build a winter road bike. You’ve got some gear levers so you’re pretty much there.

You could be right, I had a winter road bike (rim braked) for several years but rationalized it away last year (then revived it as a zwift bike) long story short it strangely makes better sense to try the “2 wheelsets 1 bike” thing for a while at least, the main variables being drivetrain and tyres.

I could rustle up another frame and just build winter road bike but the goal (for now) is fewer bikes.

I use Ultegra 12 speed – 11-34 cassette on both sets of wheels and 50/34 chain set. If I can’t get up it in 34/34 I’m walking.

Admittedly though, my bike is deliberately more the road tourer end of the gravel spectrum, than the 1xGnaar end, as I’m mostly a roadie.

Admittedly though, my bike is deliberately more the road tourer end of the gravel spectrum, than the 1xGnaar end, as I’m mostly a roadie.

I’m somewhere in the middle I think, for gravel I reckon a low ratio slightly under 1:1 more like 0.8:1 makes sense my road bike has a 38t inner and an 11-32 cassette, and that’s fine.

GRX cranks need a GRX front mech because the chain line is marginally different to road, it’s wider.

Otherwise: I use 48/31 with 11-34 on both wheel sets. Completely fine on road, frankly I like the subcompact rings given hills and weight…

I’ve two sets of wheels for my gravel bike, both with a 11-46 SLX cassette and C/L rotors (to make the swapping easy-peasy) and a 44t chainring.

Run 700x50c GravelKing SK’s on one set and 700x25c GP5000 slicks on the other – I am getting a new pair of wheels for the road as want to move to wider 32c tyres with a better ‘aero’, and lose weight (the road wheels I’ve got are cheap & heavy).

I don’t race nor ride with big groups, find the gearing fine.

Otherwise: I use 48/31 with 11-34 on both wheel sets. Completely fine on road, frankly I like the subcompact rings given hills and weight…

Yeah I ended up looking at cheap ways to ‘hack’ myself a similar setup last night, the thing that occurred to me was that I could opt for a narrower range cassette say 11-30 or even 11-28 on the road wheels with a ~32 inner and have perfectly good road climbing ratios with a closer spaced cassette.
The cranks I already have could actually do 48/32 comfortably (Old 104 BCD) and there are suitable rings still available so I could try something close before buying a GRX double.

11-34 or 11-36 for the gravel wheelset, and it gives lots of spinning capacity for off-road winching, at this point an RX400 or RX600 rear mech starts to make some sense too, I’d need to be ready to tweak the B tension when switching wheels if I choose two significantly different cassettes.

The question for me then just becomes 46 or 48t big ring? slightly lower might help for off-road riding, slightly taller for maximum on-road torque application, Meh it’s just 2 teeth, I’ll just see what’s available.

I have only ever done the fit and destroy method,so have two sets of wheels on the same hubs/discs. Both have their own cassette and chain. Takes 5 minutes to swap over and hardly ever needed to adjust.

I also have a 650b set (different hub and disc position) which needs a bit of a tweek when swapping,but they still don’t take long to set up.

Have two wheelsets for my Tempest. Made sure to buy the same brand hubs / discs for both to make swapping painless. Wide and chunky tyres and an 11-40 cassette on one set, narrower and smoother tyres with an 11-34 cassette on t’other. Fitted a road link to help the rear mech with chain capacity but the clutch (just) takes care of slack without it.

I wouldn’t think twice about swapping wheel/tyre/cassette/disc combos straight on

however

I had to ride my NP digger to work today, 45mm Schwalbe g ones… 1600g wheels, and it was faster than my Vitus Mach 3 on  38mm GK SS’s and 1800g wheels… (Vitus had another puncture in the stupid GK’s)  so I’m now just wondering if the digger should just be the all rounder? it has less top end and wider gears (1×12 vs 2×8) but easier to keep moving, even though the tyres suggest otherwise

I had to ride my NP digger to work today, 45mm Schwalbe g ones… 1600g wheels, and it was faster than my Vitus Mach 3 on 38mm GK SS’s and 1800g wheels… (Vitus had another puncture in the stupid GK’s) so I’m now just wondering if the digger should just be the all rounder? it has less top end and wider gears (1×12 vs 2×8) but easier to keep moving, even though the tyres suggest otherwise

It’s suprising the effect a change of tyres can have, in fact my gravel bike is getting fresh tyres fitted this weekend (G-one All-Rounds funnily enough).

All this wheelset faff is really just trying to stretch the use cases of my most used bike, which is itself a constant experiment anyway. The parts fitted have changed quite a bit over the years, it may well spend the summer with a wider range cassette and bigger N/W ring fitted before I carry out my terrible plan.

But yeah Tyres maketh the bike.

The Current setup (38t N/W with 11-40 cassette)

My road swap is a 10-speed 11-21 cassette. You can always go to 11-23 or even (gasp) 11-25. A little undergeared for downhills, and you will be working uphill too, but I’ve ridden plenty of 20 mph average club rides on that set up. Currently it’s on the Kickr with a 44T NW as the chain alignment is better for most of my virtual group riding.

FWIW/IME, you can get away with quite a small chainring (relatively) on a grubby weather/winter road bike.

Something like a 46/3x and 11-size of your choosing should work well.

I’m currently using a 47/37 and 11-30 on my training bike (11 speed), and the fr mech will cope with down to a 34 or maybe even 32. 47/11 is good for ~30mph without pedalling like you’re on drugs.

Only problem with my set up is the cassette is gappy, even though i can stay on the big ring for 95% of my riding (undulating, some steep but short climbs, sub 1km). Next time i’ll go down 3 or 4 teeth on the cassette and use the small ring more often.

So you could (easily) do 46/3x and a couple of 11 up cassettes (11-30 and 11-36) to cover road and gravel. They’ll even use the same chain. Just get the same hubs for ease of swapping!

You could even go for a 12 or 13 up cassette on the gravel wheels to blunt the top ratio a bit if 46/11 is too tall for gravel. That’s what i did on my CX bike (38/46 and i think a 13-28).

(I have stupid size chainrings as someone was punting out decent TA rings in weird sizes at about 10 quid a pop. Instead of 50 quid.)