cycledogg

https://www.velonews.com/2019/05/bik...etrains_493185

I'll keep my 2X drive train for the road.

On a side note, "re-lubed them with additive-free mineral oil", hummm, could be useful?

cthenn

I'll keep my 2X because 1X for road is ludicrous, unless you live in Nebraska or Florida.

Trsnrtr

I found that article interesting, also.

WhyFi

Yup, it's that three watt difference that keeps me away from 1x.

indyfabz

I don't get the comparison between Florida and Nebraska.

Trsnrtr

Nor me. Nebraska is nowhere as flat as Florida. Not even in the top ten.

LesterOfPuppets

I run 3x.

Pretty much feels like an ebike after riding 1x.

DrIsotope

Oh noes, I have around 14k miles on a 1X drivetrain, just think about all of those marginal gains I've lost out on that I absolutely don't care about! I've wasted literally minutes with extra riding, due to my infinitesimally lower cruising speed!

If anyone thinks they failed to achieve whatever it is they may have been trying to achieve as a result of 3W of drivetrain loss, that must be a pretty cool fantasy world to live in.

Psimet2001 

I shared the article on Facebook. One of my friends joked about the loss of watts. i pointed out that in order to lose watts he must first actually have watts.

This all contributes to this fallacy of tech. I'm a tech driven guy, hell it's my actual job in this industry, but I kind of feel like I'm some sort of 80's coked out stock broker who woke up in 2019 broke, divorced 3 times and staring at an AARP card he got in the mail. We all know the tech doesn't matter nearly as much as what we want to think it does.

Psimet2001 

I kind of REALLY wanted to see something in that article that would make me run to the social media and start slamming 1x for road, but what's the point. When you're working on bikes all the time you can come across some drivetrains where you can feel the resistance in the drivetrain. Sure extreme angles on both setups feel different/worse, but in my experience not nearly as much of a drag as basic maintenance, cleaning, etc.

Also to note - a more worn out chain will have less resistance in those far chainlines. It will shift for crap but will have less resistance. Choose your poison.

Trsnrtr

Quoteworthy.

TimothyH

I ride 48x16 fixed gear on the road and can't understand why this topic even deserved to be tested, let alone discussed.


-Tim-

Psimet2001 

I'm sure many espressos have been killed while discussing this topic already. Might as well have numbers.

...that way we can argue about how the numbers were obtained.

popeye

I rode last month (>800Miles) entirely on fixed with 4" of toe overlap while having new wheels built and at the end of the day it was pretty much the same as my 53/39 12/25.

tyrion

Nothing surprising here. Now let's quit wasting time and get back to discussing chain lube.

cthenn

Ugh, the public school systems have failed me on the topic of geography of the US.

Marcus_Ti

Nebraska is actually quite unflat...it ranks about 25th in flatness of the states...as opposed to Florida that is number 1.

Gravel World's, around My Fair City has 12,000ft of climbing over 150miles

memebag

So if 2x has less friction loss than 1x, does 3x have less friction loss than 2x? What abour 4x or 5x?

RChung

Actually, I think these tests verify exactly what we've known for quite a while: that there are differences in drivetrain losses, that those losses vary with chain tension, chain speed, and chain angle, and that the losses, while small, go in exactly the direction we expected. This is a triumph: the theory predicted the variables, the direction of loss, and the magnitude, and the experiment verified those predictions.

The proof of a pudding is in the tasting of it; the proof of a theory is in the quality of the predictions it makes that are subsequently verified by experiment.

But, the bottom line is that while differences do exist, they're small. That's a liberating finding because it means that, unless you're racing, you can choose whether to use 1x or 2x on other criteria than drive train efficiency: price, convenience, price, robustness, or price.

Banzai

Let’s not forget that the 1x was SRAM’s marketing solution for the fact that they couldn’t design competitive front shifting.

noodle soup

Before that, SRAM brought us the HammerSchmidt

https://www.bikemag.com/gear-feature...de-to-a-shift/

GrainBrain

Shoulda used Canola spray for real world testing.

indyfabz

Florida also has the lowest highest point of any state (345'), followed by Delaware (450').

woodcraft

Don't have to leave- it's in there:

From the takeaway "Chain efficiency and even chain lube also impact friction."

LesterOfPuppets

Thats the real problem - Nobody makes 1x chain lube!