Seattle Forrest

Almost 3 watts at 250. But often smaller. Yeah, not worth writing home about.

Having twice as many gears and having just the right one most of the time, be now that's important.

Seattle Forrest

The highest point in Seattle is 650' and we're a lowlands city.

Marcus_Ti

For the Flatness Curious:

The Flatness of U.S. States ? Disruptive Geo

TimothyH

OK, espresso is a good enough reason.

Thanks.


-Tim-

Zaskar

Right there with you Timothy (53:15) at least once a week (this morning actually)

xroadcharlie

If the Giant Cypress with a 1 x 7 speed drivetrain I looked at before buying their Sedona 3 x 7 speed had the 7 speeds properly spaced I would have chosen it for reduced maintenance and potential problems, And cleaner, simpler looks. I could care less about a tiny increase, If there is any at all in friction, or the few ounces of extra weight.

The problem is I have a few hills I would like to climb, And I want enough evenly spaced gears to fight strong wind sometimes too. It's not that the Cypress needs more gears with it's 42T chainring, It is the spacing of the shortest 2 gears. 34T vs 24. Instead of using a 20-22-24-34 they should have used 20-23-27-32. Even though the lowest gear is slightly taller, The much more even spacing would more then compensate for overall riding.

datlas 

This is something that will change cycling FOREVER!

Dean V

What is best for one situation may not be for another. Same goes for all kind of tech, whether it be disc brakes, 1x, Di2 etc.
I have 1x on some of my bikes and I like it. It suits my purposes.
It really is as simple as that.

79pmooney

Not completely true. WD-40 has rights to and makes the original 1x chain lube. 3-in-one oil. Formulated for bicycle chains in 1894 when all bikes were 1x (1).

Iride01 

48 tooth big ring on a 2x would probably show close to the same as the 1x with a 48 on the front. The test was absolutely apples and oranges in comparison.

It would have been more reasonable to compare a 50/34 front to the 48 1x. Otherwise the 1x should have been a 53 front IMO just like the 53 big ring on the 2x.

By choosing the 2x system with the biggest chain ring size difference they sorta skewed their results.

BassManNate

Kinda my thoughts exactly. Much along the same lines as the whole weight craze. Yeah, there's some non-pro riders that it makes a difference for. But I have a feeling that most riders are like me and it would do way more to remove the weight from the rider than the bike.

Seattle Forrest

But at the end of the day, it was just over 1% loss. I bet the drag from either your water bottles or your Garmin lose as much power as they found.

Seattle Forrest

No way, every pound you take off the bike is another pound you're allowed to gain.

79pmooney

This was a comparison of regular road racing gear setups with low gearing for serious hills. Sometimes, but not very often, the pros will use compact gearing but more often they use the regular 53-39 that has been the racing standard for decades and a bigger cassette. The test compared setups with identical high and low gears. (Remember, this is VeloNews, a racing rag, not a tourist publication.)

"By choosing the 2x system with the biggest chain ring size difference they sorta skewed their results." Huh? 53-39 is considered a narrow chainring difference. 52-42 is dead and 52-45 and 48 are prehistoric. Your 50-16 is a bigger difference in teeth and even bigger difference in percentage change. Did you mean the opposite? And again, they chose the decades old racing standard to present meaningful information to their audience.

Ben

ThermionicScott 

Most people's perception of Nebraska is skewed by driving through it on I-80, which by design takes a very level route through the state.

AlmostTrick

What this laboratory study doesn't show is what is most efficient for a specific rider on the real world courses they run. Doubles have too many duplicate gears, and sometimes need double/triple shifts to get to the 'next' gear up or down. And 'trimming'. Never felt very efficient to me.

After going to a single 46t ring, I won't be going back to multiple rings unless I'm touring in the mountains. And then I'd get a triple... so I can leave it in the middle ring most of the time.

seypat

I knew there was another reason I ride triples. All this time I thought it was because I have to shift to a lower gear just to get over a speed bump.

Rides4Beer

Interesting, SC is ranked 4th flattest, but it's a different story here in the upstate. I do 12-15k ft of climbing per week without even looking for it. I need to go check out the low country and see what flat riding is all about.

Seattle Forrest

I forgot about this. What a pain. I mean, it required almost no effort, but it just feels like something you shouldn't have to do. And the annoying running noise when you don't! Auto-trim is one of the best things about Di2.

ksryder

Mmmm. Now I want pancakes.

We Kansans have long laughed at the "Kansas is flat" stereotype. I was surprised to see Nebraska ranked as so much hillier -- having ridden Gravel Worlds I am well aware that it is full of rollers, but I just assumed it was similar to Kansas. I bet those monster hills in the panhandle that no one knows about have something to do with it.

Iride01 

I think there is some misunderstanding of what I meant and was getting at, but I'm not exactly certain of your meaning either so I'm not going to try to defend any of what I wrote.

However yes VeloNews is a racing rag and that will be for those running big chain rings. Perhaps the current state of whats available for 1x is what they tested, but it's also exactly why I'm not 1x though I'm all for 1x and can't wait till they can get a system that will give me 11 or more gears with ratios from somewhere around 4.8 to 1.2.

The big thing though for me is too many readers are not realizing that their 50/34 2x system would show just about the same numbers as the 1x system when compared to the 53/39 that was tested.

If the reviewers had simply added a 50/34 to the mix, then it would have kept some perspective that it's just the current state of 1x and not what 1x might be when road derailleurs can handle the range of gears on the back that will be needed to match the ratios given by the 53/39 they tested.

HTupolev

1894? I'm pretty certain that there were people running dinglespeed-esque multiple-chainring fixies by then.

Dean V

There is something weird going on with those results.
The extra drag can't be explained by the greater chain articulation from smaller cogs as the 1x shows greater drag even when compared to the small chainring when both have reasonably straight chain lines (around 2:1) but the 1x is using bigger cogs front and back.
Something else going on with chain or sprocket design/efficiency that is not actually because it is 1x.
They should of run some other numbers with the same chain and rear cassette (Shimano) on the 1x set up.

redlude97

Some of that is the chain, and some is the RD, the tension on a Sram Force 1x is by my estimation double the tension of a shimano 6800 RD in low tension position(stock position). You can increase the cage tension by moving the spring mount location to reduce chain bounce in rough terrain at the cost of increased friction
https://www.parktool.com/blog/repair...lleur-overhaul

DrIsotope

You know, it didn't even register with me that it was a true apples-to-oranges comparison-- SRAM 1X vs Shimano 2X. Almost as if SRAM 2X and Shimano 1X don't exist.

This whole "test" was terrible.