Originally Posted by
OldForerunner
On the three MTB I've converted from 3x to 1x I've saved a minimum of 1 lb. Speeds over 25mph on an MTB? Mebbe time to switch to a more efficient road bike.
You are assuming that the routes I ride can be ridden on a road bike. They might be able to be ridden on a road bike but certainly not at 25mph on that kind of bike. I do a lot of bikepacking on road and trails of variable surfaces. One of my recent ones dropped from almost 12,000 feet to 9000 feet over 10 miles on a very rocky road. Speeds on the dirt part pushed up to 25 mph and speeds on the paved part hit 35mph. That’s on knobbies. I hit 25mph pretty soon after hitting the top of the pass and would rather not coast for 10 miles. Legs get really stiff when coasting that long. A road bike would have been way out of its element and would have be a handful at 1/2 to 1/4 of that speed.
Thanks but I’ll keep my high gear and my low gear and the range in between. I use all of them with surprising regularity.