Xplr cassette with Rival 2x AXS

Off for a big ride in the Alps and am looking for some easier gears on my Revolt.

Is it possible to run a 10-44 Xplr cassette with a Rival 43-30 chainset? Current cassette is 10-36.

Is your Rival rear mech the Xplr version? As that would be the first stumbling block.

Officially speaking Xplr is only supposed to be 1x, but ive ran a 11-40 cassette on a 2x system without a problem
Your chain length on the extremities might need a bit of tweaking, but I can’t really see why it wouldn’t work.

No, middle cage Rival.

I will only run the cassette for specific rides, putting the 10-36 back on for normal duties.

I don’t think mid-cage rival can do 44t cassettes

I am running 2x with an xplr rear mech and cassette, has been flawless for me. Don’t think it would work if it wasn’t the xplr rear mech though, would be even better if sram allowed a bit more flexibility at which point on the rear cassette it moved the front chainring, then you might not even need the xplr rear mech.

In which case it 100% won’t work.
You can’t run a 40T cassette on a standard AXS mech, nevermind a 44T

You’d need a new rear mech, or at a push you could use one of the Derailleur Hanger Extension things. From Wolf Tooth or Sonder for example

Does 1x mech work in a 2x system?

Does 1x mech work in a 2x system?

No.

Edit: more precisely – they’re not designed to and quite often won’t. However there are various tales on gravel forums where people have “persuaded” 1x mechs to work in 2x systems although it’s obviously not recommended or supported by SRAM.

However there are various tales on gravel forums where people have “persuaded” 1x mechs to work in 2x systems

There’s even 2 people on this thread doing it!

Yep, and it didn’t take any persuasion, it just worked.

I think that there is meant to be a little play in the rear mech jockey wheels on the 2x version, to help chain alignment.  I haven’t noticed any performance issue to not having that play, but I can imagine it will accelerate jockey wheel wear a little, which if you tend to not cross gears (something axs can help with) then IMO the impact will be negligible.

Do the fancy enhanced shift modes work with the XPLR rear derailleur?