Originally Posted by
chaadster
How can the OP know whether a 40t 1x would work for their needs? We’d need to have more info than what has been provided, such as terrain, their power/strength, weight, fitness, and how sporting the group rides are.
We need to know (1) How fast the OP likes/needs to pedal, (2) the slowest the OP rides up their steepest climbs, (3) what cadence range the OP is comfortable sustaining. Anything else?
But yeah, a double takes much of that guess work out. What got me wondering if I could be happy with a 1x was when I realized that 1x systems have more total choices now than doubles had when I first started riding!
Originally Posted by
chaadster
Yes, well said! The “happy gear” is precisely the issue, and we must resist the temptation to boil down the intricacies of road group riding and human performance to speed-in-gear-at-cadence. It’s not even half of the story.
For myself, I set a range. For example, when I was considering a 1x, I calculated the speeds at 80rpm and 100rpm for every gear combination and made sure those ranges overlap. If someone prefers to be more precise on their cadence than that, then they will definitely not like a 1x with a wide range.