chong67

I can climb hill on a 1x11 with no problem. I had been cheating. My bike got bar ends and I stand up n rock myself back n forth up. Going uphill using a dropbar might be a little difficult? Is it?

kbarch

Nope. In some instances it's easier with the bar tape to gnaw on.
I'd like to add that when it comes to the desire to take ascents and descents - and a wide range of speeds generally - at a reasonable cadence, it's not the number of gears available that matters, it's the range. The gearing on my 1x equipped CX gives 29-110 gear inches, while my "Gran Fondo" road bike with compact crank provides 32-120 - and it only gets that high on account of the 11t cog, which many are eager to say we don't need. Otherwise I'd only get 110, i.e., a slightly more LIMITED range than the CX bike.

noodle soup

the range of gears choices isn't the problem. The huge gaps in between ratios would drive me unsane.

grolby

This is correct, I think. It's easy to mock people for not wanting to make front shifts, but realistically I think people really do try to minimize them. We pretty much treat the chainrings as high and low range settings for the rear cassette. Rather than constantly swapping rings, most people leave it in the big ring until they're going to need to drop into the lowest gears at the inner end of the cassette. When they're done using those gears, back to the big ring they go. I'm sure there are exceptions, but tracking the perfect shift pattern when you have 22 gears to choose from really is too much to do for most people when you're performing all the other tasks required to keep your bicycle upright and moving forward. That's how I ride anyway.

For years, my preferred gearing for a 2x10 speed road bike was 53-39 in front with a 12-25 cassette. I'm a road racer, so I didn't want or need crazy-low gears. Still, I could have gone to 12-28, but I didn't want to give up the 1-tooth spacing from 12T up to 17T. I was pretty interested in 11-speed, because I figured you could take a 10-speed 12-25 cassette and make it a 12-28 basically for free. Just slap on a 28 cog at the bottom, boom! Then, I actually made the upgrade to 11-speed, and discovered if you want a 12-28 11-speed cassette, the only game in town is Dura-Ace. So instead of 12-28, now I've got an 11-28, and an 11-speed 11-28 cassette is just a 10-speed 12-28 with an 11 stuck onto the end - the exact opposite of what I wanted. So I'm effectively riding and racing on the 10-speed 12-28 I didn't want because the gear spacing was too wide... and it's fine. It's seriously no problem. And we're talking about losing a 16T cog here, pretty much right in the criterium sweet-spot! NBD. And I could still buy an 11-23 cassette to use for crits and have single-tooth spacing up to 19T, but I'll come back to that.

So, what does this mean for 1x11 on the road? Well, it means you can reproduce the same gear range of that 2x10 drivetrain with 53-39 crankset, 12-25 cassette using a 50T chainring and 11-32 cassette. In fact, you get a bit more high-end with the 50x11 top gear (that 11T cog is handy when you're coming down a hill). And here's the thing: what you give up with respect to gear spacing is: almost nothing. You get the same spacing out to 19 teeth that you do with the 11-28 11-speed cassette that I discovered was really just fine for racing crits as well as hilly road races. There is a bit of a nasty 16% jump from 19T to 22T instead of a 21T (11%), but otherwise the spacing at the low end of the cassette is only a little larger, and most people tend to be less sensitive to the size of the jump in lower gears. And just as you can with a double, if a specific event or ride would be better with tighter spacing, swapping out cassettes is a very reasonable option.

Anyway, the point of this essay isn't to convince anyone that there are no compromises and no sacrifices at all in going to 1x on the road. There are. I'm not ready to do it yet, myself. Obviously getting the spacing of an 11-28 cassette but only the equivalent of 39x25 low gear is a sacrifice, but as I said before, I raced with a 39x25 low for years. The compromises just aren't that severe, to the point that arguing that they are worth not having to deal with front shifts is entirely reasonable. The limits on gear spacing and range with 1x are a minor inconvenience, just like front shifts are a minor inconvenience. Which inconvenience is more tolerable for you is mostly a matter of personal taste.

kbarch

You're referring to the ability to keep cadence in a narrow range, which is a refinement that some people don't feel the need for. Some people just want to be able to ride up grades without stomping on the pedals and to descend without feeling like they're going to spin out. Besides, the more you rely on gearing to refine cadence, the more you limit your range. A 12-25 cassette may be great in a crit, but it sucks for riding around the Catskills.

noodle soup

a 12-25 cassette is fine in the mountains, as long as you don't limit yourself to a single chainring.

kbarch

... or a set that's too big or too small. I kinda need the 11t with a 50t compact big ring and at least a 28 with a standard 39t small ring to enjoy a hilly ride.

enzo thecat

I recommend the Trek Boone with the SRAM 11 speed. I have one and I love it. Extremely comfortable.

Ryder1

Cervelo C3, SRAM Force 1, 44 x 11-36, and pretty

goenrdoug

well, there you go. /thread

chong67

I still dont get what you all are saying.

If I am reading it correctly, you dont like 1x11 setup is because you have to go thru several gears to get to your speed because you cannot keep up with what your crank?

DrIsotope

I think it's something about having more than a 5rpm jump between gears being only for rank degenerates and ne'er-do-'ells.

HTupolev

I'll try to make an exaggerated example to illustrate the point.

Suppose you've got two bikes, mostly identical and both equipped with 700x25mm tires, but they have different drivetrains. One has a 2x2 drivetrain with 36T and 24T chainrings, and the cassette cogs are 12T and 24T. The other has a 1x2 drivetrain with a single 36T chainring, and the cassette cogs are 12T and 36T.

Both bicycles have the same gearing range. The top gear ratio on the first bike is 3:1, which happens when you're in the big 36T ring and the small 12T cog; the same is true for the second bike, it has a 3:1 ratio when in its 12T cog. The bottom gear ratio on the first bike is 1:1, which happens when you're in the small 24T chainring and the big 24T cog; the second bike has a 36T chainring and its big cog is 36T, giving the same ratio.

However, those are the only two gear ratios that the second bike has. The first bike additionally has a 2:1 ratio when in the 24T chainring and 12T cog, plus a 3:2 ratio when in the 36T chainring and 24T cog.

If we do a log plot of these ratios comparing the two bikes, it looks like this:



Now, suppose that we're trying to ride uphill within a 14mph paceline. If we're like most people, at a steady cruise we like to be somewhere in the 85-115 rpm range, depending on intensity.

On the first bike, if we get into the 2:1 ratio, we'll enjoy a somewhat reasonable 89rpm cadence. We could also get into the 3:2 ratio, which would give us a very brisk 119rpm cadence; this might be an okay option if we're pedaling at very high power, although if the pace is easy for us then the 2:1 is probably preferable and will feel more relaxed. We might also get into the 3:1 if we want to mix it up and do some low-cadence pedaling while standing.

On the second bike, we don't have these choices, only the 3:1 and 1:1. If we get into the 3:1, we'll have to mash high torque at a very low 59rpm, in which gear we'll probably want to spend a lot of time standing; if we get into the 1:1, our legs will have to whirl about in a comically high 180rpm, making several full crank revolutions every second.

Although the second bike has the same low and high gears as the first, the first bike gives us a lot more control in how we regulate our cadence, torque, etc.

//===================

With wide 1x11 setups in the real world, the situation is obviously astronomically less dire than the above example. But qualitatively speaking, compromises of those sorts exist. The gears are more spaced out than in a 2x11 setup with similar range, and so we aren't as able to fine-tune how we pedal.

Jofu

Hopefully my image upload works... The graph here shows a comparison between 50/34 11-32 (my Ultegra 11 Spec Roubaix) and 46 10-42 (my Force 1 Spec Diverge X1). Climbing has been equally easy/difficult on either bike, and I personally have found that the "missing gears" have not been that missed But I understand that's a subjective thing.



Comparing Shimano 50/34 11-32 with SRAM 46 10-42 - Imgur


Geoff

SHBR

I think the OP knows nothing about cadence.

My fastest bike has two gears. (34/50X18)
Folding bike has a 6 speed freewheel (48X14-28)
Beater bike has a 5 speed freewheel and a triple crank. (24/38X14-28)

I find it amazing that people buy geared bikes, yet never shift.

kbarch

See, this makes your point of view very clear, which is key. If real hills are few and far between (or non-existent) and one is only dealing with mildly variable grades and occasional humps, what you're talking about makes a lot of sense, and a tightly spaced cassette is ideal. The thing is, if you're pacelining up it at 14mph, it's not much of a hill. Sure, there's uphill and downhill, but generally speaking, maintaining a paceline and climbing and descending hills - categorized ones especially - are antithetical. There is no advantage from a draft when one is mashing up a double-digit grade, and drafting someone when you're descending at 40mph+ isn't maintaining a pace, especially if one is coasting half the time.

On rides where one is lucky to get more than half a mile of flat at a time, and grades are constantly changing and often steep, there's hardly any time to refine ones cadence. In fact, on such rides if one has a tightly spaced cassette, one finds oneself frequently shifting two or more cogs at a time, and back and forth on the crank set, in which case a 1x and wide-range cassette make more sense. Not everyone who rides on the road is looking for the fastest, smoothest way out to some distant point B and back. Some prefer to explore.

dmanthree

Odd, I've never had any issues.

noodle soup

It's a very common complaint.

solidtyres

After riding fixed for a few years, my tolerance for wacky gear spacing went way up.

Racing Dan

Imo the current 1x fashion has come about partly as a result of 10/11 speed cassettes making it possible in the first place and partly as a result of 50/34 compact cranks with their annoying giant gearing jump. Spacing the chain rings closer makes chain ring shifts much less of an issue.

TimothyH

Both the 1x vs 2x and compact vs triple arguments seem like dancing on the head of a pin.

Jiggle

Well, not really. My 2x11 mountain bike annoys me with the gear jumps when I'm riding it to the trail head. Around 17mph the 36x15 is too small and the 36x13 is too big. And that's just for like a 20 minute ride. A 1x11 road bike would suck suck suck unless I lived in some totally flat fantasy land and could use an 11-28 cassette.

Jiggle

Riders seem to be illogically hung up on gear overlap and are resistant to a 36/46 front ring setup. It's quite comical.

DrIsotope

Well, that's just absurd. I ride 1X on the road and climb 10-12,000ft a week, while averaging +20mph on flats. I don't miss the FD at all.

Racing Dan

Gear overlap is Imo a good thing. Saves you from shifting rings (+3 shifts in the back) ever single time you cross the narrow "speed band" afforded by a 50/34 compact.