- This topic has 45 replies, 26 voices, and was last updated 12 years ago by njee20.
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Why is 2×10 considered an improvment on 3×9?
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rollindoughnutFree Member
Why are 2 x 10 setups considered an improvement on 3 x 9?
I want to shift up and down the full range of my 9 sprocket cassette with the speed and assurance only the rear derailler can provide. That covers 95% of my riding. Occasionally I need to shift to the granny ring for technical or extreme climbs or to the big ring if I’m on the road or need to stand up and blast on flat off road.
What’s the logic of essentially splitting my gears in two, forcing me to do a chainring shift to access either end of my previously easily accesible ratios?Are we sure the marketing men aren’t driving this one?
13thfloormonkFull MemberMeh, the marketing men are driving everything, once they’ve run out of ways to improve 9spd they just lop a chainring off and start all over, its why we’ve got electric shifting, office chair technology on our seat posts, extendable handlebars etc etc etc
Just ignore it, whats important (to me) is that my new bike came with 2×10 and quite frankly, I didn’t notice a difference, in fact, I think it might be a slight improvement. The two rings up front overlap in such a way that you’re not constantly shifting all the time, its basically wee ring for the uphills, big ring for the flat and the downhills, you can practically use the whole cassette from both rings as the chainline is better.
doug_basqueMTB.comFull Member36 teeth cassettes? For me that’s the big benifit.
ircFull Membermy new bike came with 2×10 and quite frankly, I didn’t notice a difference,
I’ve run a mixture of 3×8 and 3×9 bikes over the past few years. I find the rear indexing on 8 speed both easier to set up and less likely to go out of adjustment than 9 speed.
Just out of curiosity as I’m not in the market for a new bike right now is 10 speed harder to set up and keep indexed than 9 speed?
clubberFree MemberFor me at least
– All the gear range I actually use on my mtb
– more chainring clearanceI won’t be going back to triples unless it’s for an mtb I do a lot of road miles on which is unlikely as I have road and cx bikes for that…
doug_basqueMTB.comFull Memberirc. I don’t think so. I honestly haven’t touched the adjusters on my Shimano XT shifters in a year. I wrote a few words on the XT stuff and how it lasted, it’s on my website, under “gear reviews”, if you want. The basic conclusion for me was shimano xt 10 speed has been good to me. The SRAM X9 was a disaster for me.
SimonFull Member36 teeth cassettes? For me that’s the big benifit
Why no 9spd 36t cassettes though? (other than heavyweight Deore)
brFree MemberI demo’ed a Remedy with 2×10.
Very impressed by both the quality (and it wasn’t just because it was X0, as my bike runs XTR) of front shifting and the ability to use any of the rear gears with either of the front.
No way would I throw away my 3×9 for 2×10, but if I was buying a new bike I’d look for it.
Also you probably need a bit of fitness as the lowest gear in 2×10 (with a 36 rear) is not as low as 3×9 (with a 34 rear).
flap_jackFree MemberIt seems no one wants to go fast off road anymore. I still running 46 on the front…
rollindoughnutFree MemberA lot of replies about shifters and indexing, but all things inc fitness being the same surely having to shift chainrings halfway through the gear progression is a hinderance?
mrmoFree MemberI find the rear indexing on 8 speed both easier to set up and less likely to go out of adjustment than 9 speed.
Just out of curiosity as I’m not in the market for a new bike right now is 10 speed harder to set up and keep indexed than 9 speed?
Never had a problem setting up 6, 7, 8 or 9spd gears. oh well.
As for why go 2×9/10 front shifts are what tend to break chains, front shifts are never as clean as rear shifts, on the basis that you shouldn’t be using the cross over gears anyway you aren’t losing that many gears in the middle, there is the detail that with three rings there is a lot of duplication going on. with a 2 ring setup you lose a couple of gears, if you don’t use the very extremes why not.
Having thought about it i could probably go 1×10 quite happily if i didn’t have to get off road by riding on the road and if hope ever release there 9 tooth sprocket i suspect most of my concerns would go away.
jamesFree Member“36 teeth cassettes? For me that’s the big benifit”
But you can get 36t 9spd casettes?
I believe they were originally released for 29″ers to replicate a 32T casette on a 26″erIIRC Shimano triple ring 10spd chainsets use a 24T granny ring, 9spd use 22T. A 22-34 combo is a lower gear than 24-36T
SRAM and others use a 22T granny on 10spd cranks, but again, there are 36toothed 9spd casettesThere is/was a 20T granny ring for some middleburn chainsets if you want even lower?
clubberFree Memberas above, you use big for most stuff and small for steep or long climbs. ime I actually shift less at the front now.
JehosophatFree MemberI run a 46 chainring and use it – a lot – mostly on road but off road as well. I’m not lucky enough to be able to avoid a fair few road miles to get to the best stuff. And on holidays to real mountains, high gearing is very handy – on and off road.
I’m sticking with 3×9 (indeed 3×8 on the bikes used in mud a lot) – and rapid rise XTR mechs – which, unavailable in 10sp, will keep me in 8/9 speed for some time yet as I hate normal rear mechs!
Garry_LagerFull MemberDon’t think it makes any performance difference really, unless you’re a particular gear ratio fetishist. Lower entropy though, innit, so that’s good.
There’d be no way I’d switch an existing set up over, but I have 2×10 on a new bike and am happy with it.
As a few people mentioned on the other thread, 1 x n is a bigger switch and can be a noticeable improvement depending on your type of riding.mrmoFree MemberIt seems no one wants to go fast off road anymore. I still running 46 on the front…
46×11, that is some gear, at around 100rpm, which is quick but not anywhere near stupid your getting on for 40mph. a 40×11 will get you comfortably over 30mph. How often do you need a gear that big?
13thfloormonkFull Memberfitness being the same surely having to shift chainrings halfway through the gear progression is a hinderance?
Well… not really, see what I wrote above. Small ring for the climbs, maybe start shifting down the cassette as you pick up speed or the terrain levels out, then stick it in the big ring till you hit another significant climb. In a way, you having to shift from the little ring, to the middle ring, to the big ring, would be more of a hindrance, if you actually consider shifting a gear a hindrance that is (maybe in the middle of a bunch sprint, yes…)
Flap Jack, I don’t know where I would spin out a 46×11 gear, so few of my rides feature long fast descents. Singletrack, technical/steep descents, masses of mud and bogs 🙁 perhaps, but nowhere I’d need a 46, in fact, before I got a 2×10 bike I’d pre-empted ‘Dyna-Sys’ and gone down to a 42 tooth chainring anyway.
mrmoFree Membermaybe my attitude is coloured by the detail that when i started out granny was 24×28, and that didn’t seem to be a problem for anyone.
tomhowardFull MemberGuess ive bucked the trend, I’ve just ditched 1×9 in favour of 3×9. Curse my pathetic legs and lungs! And general fitness…:-S
kevolutionFree MemberI guess it was aimed at xc racers initially to narrow the q factor more like road bikes and then pave the way for bigger wheels just like road bikes.
The next big thing in mtb is drop bars.tomhowardFull MemberShhh, don’t tell the cool kids who already run drops, it’ll take away 1 of their precious niches….
flap_jackFree MemberFlap Jack, I don’t know where I would spin out a 46×11 gear,
Into Les Linderets, you can hit over 75 kmph on the PassPortes heh heh. Just watch out for the large drainage channel…
smuttiesmithFree Memberflap_jack – Member
Flap Jack, I don’t know where I would spin out a 46×11 gear,
Into Les Linderets, you can hit over 75 kmph on the PassPortes heh heh. Just watch out for the large drainage channel…But why would you take the wide fire road when you can take the kick ass descent off to the left with its steep vertigo inducing switchbacks??
bent_udderFree MemberI’ll tell you why for one reason – buying a Deore touring chainset (26, 36, 48) and selling the big ring is actually cheaper than buying three new chainrings for my XT chainset, and comes in lighter to boot, with nice long lasting steel rings. The Deore cranks went on my singlespeed and the chainrings onto the XT cranks on my Five. With a 11-34t 9 speed rear, it has a reasonable range as well – good enough, as they say. I rarely need the granny. When and if my rear mech or shifter conks out, I’ll think about 2×10. but that might take a while.
As Mrmo said, it used to be 24×28, and that worked fine. 🙂
bm0p700fFree MemberIf I was building a new mountan bike I would build a 2×9 not a 2×10 as it cheaper and off all the same benefits. As ride single speeds which are even cheaper so I won’t be building a 2×9 anythime soon. Unless I find a stash of cash then I will build a 29’er with a 2×10 set up.
floatFree Memberforcing me to do a chainring shift to access either end of my previously easily accesible ratios?
nail > head. this is why im sticking 3×9.
the way i see it, granny ring – uphills, middle – flat, big – downhill, i then use the cassette to trim the gearing. with 2 up front if you run out of gears on the little cog, you shift up on the front but then have to shift the chain right the way across the cassette to get the gear you want (does that make sense, its late…)
also if anyone can point me in the direction of a ramped 40 tooth cog for the front i would be very grateful.
mrmoFree Memberalso if anyone can point me in the direction of a ramped 40 tooth cog for the front i would be very grateful.
My TA 40 tooth ring has ramps on it.
amediasFree MemberI’m still running a 26/36/46 XTR M952 front setup and can honestly say I barely even use the middle ring, let alone he granny.
I don’t often spin it out, but I prefer to push a bigger gear (probably a result of SSing a lot) on the climbs, for most of the riding I do locally and the trails at Afan/Cwmcarn it’s big ring all the way.
I know I shouldn’t be that far up the cassette in the big ring cos of the chain angle etc, but I prefer the feel in the big ring, and my bike has horrible feedback in anything smaller than 36tooth, and I’m still only on the 2nd set of chainrings on that crank and the cassette is nearly 2 years old so wear hasn’t been an issue.
Every 2x something setup I have tried has felt really under geared in the outer ring, and the rare times I do go for the granny it’s cos it’s mental steep or I’m knackered so I like having a proper granny instead of a ‘slightly small middle ring’, so for me 2 ring setups don’t really work at all.
joao3v16Free MemberI have a 2×9 setup, as I’ve never got round to buying a granny ring & haven’t really missed it (except on one or two particularly steep climbs).
I can’t imagine what benefit a 10-speed cassette would give me. Maybe I would if I tried one, but I’ve no complaints about the ratios available from my 11-34 combined with 36/46T chainrings.
Not a lot of my riding is very steep or slow/technical so I can get away with the above.
njee20Free Membernail > head. this is why im sticking 3×9.
But that’s personal – I found I shifted far more with a triple, which was why I went 2×9.
I don’t often spin it out, but I prefer to push a bigger gear (probably a result of SSing a lot) on the climbs, for most of the riding I do locally and the trails at Afan/Cwmcarn it’s big ring all the way.
**swoons**
You hero! I assume you race? As you need higher gears than any world cup XC racer you must be rather handy!
davesmateFree MemberAs I understand it you can use the whole cassette in either chainring on a 2×10 set up and you have just as many unique ratios as a 3×9 set up.
Willing to be proved wrong on both counts though!
amediasFree Member**swoons**
You hero! I assume you race? As you need higher gears than any world cup XC racer you must be rather handy!
no, I’m not even that quick. I’m just not a spinner and prefer to push a bigger gear at a lower cadence even when going at the same pace as the guy next to me in the middle ring at a higher cadence.
It’s not a boasting thing. I never said I *needed* massive gears due to speed, they just suit the way I ride better, and see comment about feedback on my bike with small chainrings, I’m normally up at the top of the cassette so in the same actual gear as most people in middle ring.
amediasFree Memberthinking about it, I am probably a perfect candidate for 2 ring setup, It’s just that the two rings I would want are 44 or 46 as the outer and 24 or 26 as the inner, and I don’t think it would shift that well with that setup…
njee20Free MemberI’m normally up at the top of the cassette so
in the same actual gear as most people in middle ring.really buggering my chain line, and would be far better with a doubleIf you’re sat at the top of the block why do you need the 46, I don’t get that 😕
Even on the road a 42/11 is a pretty reasonable gear. I used to use the M952 26/36/48, but wouldn’t even consider that now!
amediasFree Member46 because that what the cranks come with, 42 or 44 would be fine but
that’s not the chainring I have. Top of block when climbing, still cruise around the middle of the block.You keep ignoring my comment about the bike too, it feels awful in the middle ring.
Like I said, I probably would be better off with a double, just not in the ratios that they offer.
A 44/24 double would suit me down to the ground. I could happily ride most of the time on the big ring, but I could bail out to the granny when I need to.
Ignoring chainline for a moment, I’d much rather be riding the 44front 18 – 26 area of the cassette than 32front 14 – 18 area of the cassette as it suits my bike better and I get more chain wrap and less wear.
And buggering my chainline I may be, but I don’t have problems with skipping gears, snapped chains or wear so I’ll carry on riding in the gear that suits me and my bike thanks 🙂
njee20Free MemberA 44/24 double would suit me down to the ground. I could happily ride most of the time on the big ring, but I could bail out to the granny when I need to.
Fair enough, sounds very odd – to go from being able to ride everything on a 46 to wanting a 24, each to their own!
I’d have thought you’d find everything much nicer with a 27/42 or 26/42, which will be fine (the latter maybe a little rough on the shift), or 28/42 if you want off the shelf. Chain line would be far better and you’ve have access to the whole cassette.
I can see why you’d not want a 22/36 which many people use, neither would I!
juanFree MemberI can see why you’d not want a 22/36 which many people use, neither would I!
Yeah same here 36 is too big 😉
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