Bah Humbug

Good thing there are 44t Ekar chainrings.

delbiker1 

16.6 lbs

As I rode it today.
I put the final changes on the Zeppelin today, a set of Vuelta SLR wheels with GK 28mm slicks, and a Pro Turnix saddle. The bike is now at 16.6 lbs., with no accessories. I have been keeping my rides short due to tweaking my back, again, last Monday. I did 11 miles today with the set up in the second picture, 44t front and 11-36 rear. The more I ride this bike with the 1 X, the more I like the set up. The shifting with the bar ends in friction mode is very good, and, with the 11 speed, lever travel is short. I have purchased a Deore M5100 cassette, 11-42, for when I might need lower gearing, will just have to use a chain with 2 more links.

Minion1

I'm not piling on, in fact I think I may even be agreeing with you a little, but I just wanted to chip in with my experience. I had a 1x road bike with 50t front, and 11-34 on the back, 10spd Shimano with an old mtb derailleur to see what the fuss was about. Chain retention was good, was it lighter, yep (I suppose, barely noticed, probably a wash with wider range cheap cassettes), shifting required less brain, so more brain free for other things, and the range from memory was about the same as a standard double with 11-25 cassette. I don't race up hills, so This was fine. The 1x setup may have lasted longer if I had a dedicated 1 x shifter set, I was using a pair of road ultegra levers, and it seemed a waste to have the left hand shifter doing nothing. The nagging thing was that the smallest 3 sprockets were next to useless - I had very little chance of ever turning a gear that size over, so basically had a 1 x 7 group. I could have put a smaller chainring on, and shifted the problem to the other end of the cassette, but by that point I just returned it to a double and moved on.

But even as a 1 x 7 it still worked really well. Had plenty of useable gears, and a small enough gear for grinding on climbs. It was fine for crits and short flat rides, but for longer rides, or rides where you need to manage fatigue, that's where the shortfalls of *that particular setup* were really evident - if you're struggling to hold a wheel, with a 1x where you can't find the right gear you're really struggling, so redlining earlier and we all know what happens next. I'm sure the newer combinations address some of these issues, but not enough to dissuade me from sticking to a plain double for now. I'm sure not plonking down AXS money, when the sponsored riders were getting custom rings made and grousing about the 10t sprocket creating too much friction in the drive train.

msu2001la

In terms of 1x being viable for road use, I'd just offer that the difference on the top end isn't as big as people think. If you compare a 42x11 and a 52x11 at 90rpm, it's 27.3mph vs 33.8mph. 42x11 is the same as 50x13.

Most people I ride with aren't using their 11 or 12 cogs much, even if they're running a 50T big ring. Outside of racing, for me this would be spirited downhill/tailwind sprinting off the front of the group ride, or possibly some very long/sustained downhill sections.

The bigger factor on 1x for road is on climbing gears. The larger cassettes can get heavy and have larger gaps (especially on the big half). Those gaps can be problematic for long/sustained climbing where you really want to find that perfect cadence.

I run a 44T with 11-32 rear for 1x road and it's fine for flat land riding - even reasonably fast road group rides. This gearing doesn't work for climbing though. If I lived in an area with climbs I'd definitely want 2x.

vespasianus

I run EKAR on my gravel bike - 40T ring and 9-42 cassette. The 40X9 combo is 119 gear inches and at 90 RPM would put me at >30MPH. I am a B rider and can easily ride my gravel bike with the group - do it almost every weekend now.

If you don't understand the important role of the single chain ring on mountain bikes, let me give you a hint, it has nothing to do with the gear ratio's or shifting, but rather everything to do with suspension design.

Zaskar

The controversy surrounding the 1x setups is funny. If the low and high gear inches are the same or similar to a 2x, the only "sacrifice" is a few bigger jumps between gears. Mtn bikers figured this out years ago.

Eric F 

It really comes down to tailoring the 1x range to what is usable for your needs, by using the right size/range at both ends. I went to 1x on my gravel bike partially because I had top-end gears with my 2x setup that I wasn't using. Looking at the overlap of small ring vs. big ring ratios, I really only had 15 meaningfully different options. 2 of those, I didn't use. Going from 2x to 1x reduced my gear options from 13 to 11. Going with a larger cassette, I extended my range on the low end, and the spacing between gears widened a little. However, what I have is perfect for what I ride. The low end gets me up 15+% climbs, and the high end allows me to pedal at ~30mph. If we're going faster than that, I can probably tuck and coast, and save my effort. My gravel ride yesterday included all of that.

Atlas Shrugged

Exactly. Now with 13 speed cassettes and 9 tooth sprockets the steps are very linear. It is actually fairly encouraging that most of the responses seemed open minded and informed about the advances in drivetrain technology.

base2 

And on road with long steady climbs or sustained headwinds finding a comfortable cadence that can be settled into for some time begins to be a desirable characteristic. This is why doubles have the dense overlap in the middle, mostly used range of the gearing choices.

Conventional 1x by contrast has all of the range, none of the fine resolution where the rider spends most of their time. Cog 9 to 10 is a bigger (10%) jump than 10 to 11 (9%.) The difference between the 1x's 9 cog & 11 is 18% That is a pretty big jump if 9 & 11 are your only choices. The 2x's 11 to 13 is 15%

In a 2x system with a bigger, big ring, the number of teeth on each cog are a smaller proportion of the larger ring. 50/11=4.54:1 the 11 cog is 22% of the 50. In a 1x the 40/9=4.44:1 and the 9 tooth cog is 22.5% of the 40. The situation deteriorates rapidly. In a mountain bike 30/9 the 9 is 30%

What this means is: In addition to cogs with smaller difference between eachother, that smaller percent difference is a smaller proportion of the drive ring. IOW the scaling of the 2x drivetrain will be more forgiving. The bigger the big ring the less a single single tooth jump will mean. This is good if you want to a higher resolution of choices and a more forgiving steady state system.

The cool thing with Ekar is the large number of choices (13) and their selection. As corn-cobby as possible where a road rider wants a desired fine resolution choice for cadence, & bigger jumps where terrain more or less dictates the rider won't be in a particular cadence long enough to be annoyed. They chose each cog to follow a curve so that each jump in ratio has the same impact on speed. That's some serious thinkin' they did on that. Conventional wisdom is to choose even jumps in ratio which scales speed in a nonlinear fashion.

I am not passing judgement. 1x is fantastic where widely variable, rapidly changing terrain dictates that huge sweeping changes in gearing is desired.

The Ekar is interesting indeed. I am curious to see the efficiency data for the increased chain angle & small cog chain tension in relation to a conventional 2x system. Maybe aero losses, saved & system weight make up the difference? I'll wager the smart scaling of cog selection seals the deal in a good way.

cat0020

Beginning of the end for double chainrings.

Primoz Roglic uses gravel groupset in Giro d'Italia queen stage

https://www.cyclingnews.com/news/pri...age-19-finale/

Eric F 

Those wide, deep wheels and fat tires are too heavy and slow for climbing! Oh, wait...

mschwett 

that would be interesting - although wouldn’t it be more significant climbing? at high speeds on the flats it’s all about being more aero rather than a percent of two of drivetrain loss.

would a 42:42 be more efficient than a 34:34? larger rotating mass vs smaller chain angle….

Bah Humbug

My experience is more teeth are better. I hated the same gear in my small ring vs large, every time...

tomato coupe

He used 1x for part of the stage.

The Chemist

I was able to keep up with my pretty quick group on a 46 / 11-36 1x11 setup with a cadence around 90 which most certainly not spinning out.

PeteHski

I suspect the difference is pretty insignificant. Probably lost in the noise of the cleanliness of your drivetrain.

PeteHski

I notice differences in chain line more than teeth. For example I prefer to be in the middle of the cassette on the small chainring than the largest couple of cassette gears in the big chainring. But that’s just a “feeling” and I doubt it makes much difference in terms of efficiency.

SoSmellyAir

Me too. Big big cross-chaining is noisy and detracts from the ride.

mschwett 

my drivetrain is insulted! you wound me, sir!

jonathanf2

I built out my 1x road bike with a 44t 11-32t setup. I can climb most everything in my area. If I need more power to go up a hill, I just ride out of saddle. I was thinking of going with an 11-36t, but I like the closer gearing of the 11-32t. On group rides I just tuck behind a bigger rider and draft. The nice thing about 1x is better chain retention, smooth shifting and you can focus more on your cadence.

Eric F 

Primoz Roglic might have a different opinion about that.

Bah Humbug

Big-big yes, but I preferred big-secondBig over dropping to the small ring. It just felt so gross.

PeteHski

Maybe that’s more of an issue with your specific drivetrain. Both my road bikes feel smooth in the small ring (Shimano 11-speed and SRAM 12-speed. They both feel at their roughest in big/big and big/2nd. I never run the small ring at the small end of the cassette, so I don’t know how rough that gets.

Bah Humbug

Big-2nd felt better than small-anything, regardless of who had tuned it however recently. It wasn't rough, just always better with the same ratio in the big ring. Hence desire to go 1x - I hardly dropped into the little ring at all anyway because of that. Didn't need much extra range to make it work.

tomato coupe

I like big-big. No noise, no roughness.