One more thing these new fangled 1x drivetrains are good at: Cutting through mud. 64 mile race yesterday racing through constant mud and muck, raining most of the time, absolute snot greasy mud everywhere. 20 years ago we'd be constantly fiddling with barrel adjusters in these conditions trying to get the bike to keep shifting and the mud and muck would be overpowering the derailleur. Now with 1x, the tension from the clutch, the narrow wide stuff, it just shifts every time like it's supposed to, pretty much oblivious to the conditions. It wasn't exactly "fun" to ride in the muck, but at the only checkpoint my helper asked me "is your bike working ok?". My bike was great, my hands and feet and all my wet clothes, not so much. Got a good change of clothes and was able to complete the race just fine, but a large part was due to not having to worry about the bike ever. It just works. 2x, 3x, 8 9 and 10 speed were largely the same and they just didn't deal with conditions.

Yeah yeah, I know what he's going to say, not enough people ride in mud to justify a 1x drivetrain...haha

 

One more thing these new fangled 1x drivetrains are good at: Cutting through mud.

I wonder if the modern NW rings help too. The teeth are essentially the size of old DH rings. I notice on the Renthal ones I have on a couple of bikes that they have quite aggressive cut aways to help shed mud and grime. So that's the front half being kept cleaner at least.

 

i still cant figure out its purpose

you know in my mind i say when you can have 3 options of gears on your front why should you have 1 ???

And mainly those 1X's use a 32T or 30T so they dont have that much of a high ratio for flats & descents And your cranks are what you call it ? Your pedalling is loose and the speed of you padaling cant pace up with your speed

one a for example 3x with a 44T on the front and a 11T on the rear you have 4X speed ratio
But even with a 32T and a 10T on the rear you have 3.2

Also on the other end of the gear ratio on a 3X with 22T on the front and a 36T on the rear you have 1.63 of power ratio ( or 0.61 )

But on a 1X with 32T and like a 48T on the rear you have 1.5 ( 0.66 )

On both sides of the ratio you have less ratio....

Also your derailleur has to take a lot of tension when its on the large Cogs.....your chain line isnt always in a good position.....

So what are the pros and positive points of 1X's ?

Narrow wide (NW) tooth profile holds the chain to ring over big bumps. This retention makes it harder to shift with a front derailleur. But SRAM uses NW on 1st gear cog, shifting is possible. I found a 2x SRAM GX will shift up and down a NW front ring.

Next is chainstay clearance. Maximum strength at the lower pivot depends on more width, and a triple limits that. However, on my all mountain Chromag hard tail there is clearance for an inner ring. I run 24/32 NW. The very low gear has better chainline, as you point out. I do not use a front derailleur, but shift by hand where a trail section benefits from it.

A touring bike or tandem definitely needs the wide range provided by a triple as you describe. Compromises are made for bike specialization.

 

I run 24/32 NW. The very low gear has better chainline, as you point out. I do not use a front derailleur, but shift by hand where a trail section benefits from it.

We've discussed this before. But depending on the cassette on the back and your wheel size, a 24t front chainring is very, very small. I put one on a double on an older bike for quite a specific reason. I'd hurt myself and whilst recovering I struggled to walk up steep grades. We had a big ride planned and I can absolutely keep spinning, but couldn't walk. So I put a 24t on with my 34t NW ring and manually changed. This was with maybe a 11-42t on the back. In the smallest gears it was comical. Every pedal stroke would just lift the bars, wheelie city.

In the end I didn't need it, but it was a genuinely tiny gear.

 

Shifting Narrow/Wide raises a question. The wide tooth goes in the wide hole in the chain, the narrow tooth goes in the narrow hole. How does a derailleur make that happen?
Shifting by hand makes sense.
As far as 3x having more range? I would look at the derailleur chain capacity. Go to Sheldon Browns Bicycle gear Calculator and see if there is any difference. All I found was closer gear splits with narrow cassettes and wide splits on the chainrings. But I only checked my own SS cage derailleur.

 

Shifting Narrow/Wide raises a question. The wide tooth goes in the wide hole in the chain, the narrow tooth goes in the narrow hole. How does a derailleur make that happen?

The risk is that it doesn't. And you have the chain sitting on top of the chain ring.

 

The risk is that it doesn't. And you have the chain sitting on top of the chain ring.

I've heard pf the SRAM Narrow/Wide rear cog. But as a retired mechanic I'm not interested in something that looks like it can't work, and serves no apparent purpose.

Light Bicycle still make 26" carbon rims I think.

I shopped Light Bicycle. No 24 spoke option.
I found these Chinese guys. Carbonal. 280g. XC rims. I run Latex tubes so the hookless thing should be OK.

XC625 - 26er mtb 25mm internal width 25mm deep carbon rim - 280g

Shop XC625 - 26" carbon mtb rim of 25mm wide internal 30mm wide external 25mm deep hookless. Light and stiff, it's our lightest 26er carbon rim for XC, 280g only! Compatible tubeless/clincher tires of 2.0" - 2.4". It maybe the best cross country carbon rim to build into a super light 26" carbon...

carbonal.net

They didn't try to rape me on the shipping like some Ebay vendors.
I'm not saying 24 spoke or 280g. rims are a good choice for anybody else. My 71yo riding is pretty tame, so is the flat terrain here in SoFla. But 100g. lighter than Light Bicycle's XC rim!

 

Haha, oh man. Those SC are chonky.

What's your trail terrain like and what's your ideal bike? Here in Central TX, we have lots of limestone chunk and tight trails, and in the summer the ground becomes powder. So far my best bike is the Intense Primer 275 with a coil.
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Haha, oh man. Those SC are chonky.

What's your trail terrain like and what's your ideal bike? Here in Central TX, we have lots of limestone chunk and tight trails, and in the summer the ground becomes powder. So far my best bike is the Intense Primer 275 with a coil.

Yeah, those SC frames are "sturdy".

The terrain around Albuquerque is either High Desert loose over rock or typical high alpine type mountain biking with lotsa Aspens and Pine tree. Most single track varies from flowy, wide open (relative to the East coast type singletrack), to extremely rocky and technical (similar to AZ next door).

Long climbs followed by long descents. If you want flat, there's a pretty good trail network down in the valley along the Rio Grande. My house is at 5800 above sea level. The city is at 5300 ft. We're up against a pretty significant mountain (Sandia) which tops out at 10,300 and the foothills (west face) and the East side of the mountain are covered in singletrack. 4 seasons, but it does get hot in July/August (upper 90''s to above 100) but with really low humidity.

I found my ideal MTB in the 130mm/140 flexstay Stumpy. Climbs really well for a trailbike and is enough for the desents. I'm not a big jump/drop double black guy. I like doing big xc rides 20-35 miles with a lot of elevation gain.

 

Dang, that sounds like great riding!

 

It's an underrated city. Big bike community (road and mtb) and miles of trails, just have to dodge the meth-heads and the UFO's.

 

Obviously a 1x system has all the gears that are useable, whereas a 2x10, 3x9 etc have so many cross over gears that the useable gears are not much more than the 11 or 12 speed 1x drivetrains. Yeah, you can get more low end and high end gearing with 2x or 3x but at the cost of shifting, noise and positive engagement, I'll stick with 1x for the foreseeable future.

 

Yet there is no penalty for adding a stick shift granny. Assuming a frame that fits and a 2x crank, 1x setup is unaffected. It has the same chainline. But you get a rock crawler gear too. With a straight chain. And you can use a bigger ring without fear that a slope will be too steep.

2x non boost crank on a boost frame.

 

Also, the DR probably cant handle small ring and smaller end of the cassette.

I'm curious what this does to the B-gap. The chain would be much slacker in the smaller ring. Do you need to set B-gap there, and then hope it holds in the large ring, or risk the jockey wheel driving into the larger cogs in the cassette. I have to adjust the B-gap if a drop a link in the chain. Your smaller ring is like dropping 4 or 5 links.

 

Also, the DR probably cant handle small ring and smaller end of the cassette.

I was wondering what it looked like in small small too!

 

Also, the DR probably cant handle small ring and smaller end of the cassette.

I'm curious what this does to the B-gap. The chain would be much slacker in the smaller ring. Do you need to set B-gap there, and then hope it holds in the large ring, or risk the jockey wheel driving into the larger cogs in the cassette. I have to adjust the B-gap if a drop a link in the chain. Your smaller ring is like dropping 4 or 5 links.

You’re correct, you do have to set the gap so it keeps the jockey pulley clear. This is LinkGlide with a 50T

XT LinkGlide derailleur with 11-50 CS-LG700-11
B tension screw is at mid point. Chain length affects this setting.

32T,24T in front
Chromag Stylus hard tail.

Many miles and hours in this setup, including long distance stupid rides over Wilson saddle to the Beast and Elsmere canyon with thirty miles of road to the trailhead and back. No fouling, it works perfectly.

In 24T

In 32T