Hey all,

I was thinking the other day, and I realized something interesting.

If you do the calculations for gearing range, a 1 x 10 setup with a 53 tooth chainring and a 11-36 cassette has the same range as a 53/39 with a 11-25. Alternatively, a 52 ring with the same cassette has the same range as a 53/39 with a 12-27 cassette. And when I looked into the weight savings I found that depending on the setup the weight ends up being either the same or better with the 1 x 10. And of course it would be more mechanic-friendly and less expensive. The downsides being that there's larger gaps between gears and that you have to use either one of the SRAM WiFli rear derailleurs or a 10 speed SRAM mountain rear derailleur so I guess this question may be irrelevant to those of you who don't like SRAM a whole lot. But anyway...
My question to you is:

Given the above information, would you ride a 1 x 10 road setup?

For me, I'd do it because less parts that can fail is always a good thing in my book. As for the larger gaps in between the gears, I find that I tend to shift a few gears at a time usually because the tiny jumps between cogs that are only one tooth apart in size feel almost like I haven't even shifted gears. So to me that's actually a bit of a bonus.

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I'm so rubbish at this.

I ran a 1x9 for a few months many years back, 52t 11-34 cassette. It never felt lacking in range over a traditional setup, but the jump in gears was pretty extreme when it came time to trying to comfortably maintain a consistent speed with other riders. In fact I'll just say it outright didn't work on longer rides for that purpose. For a screw around bike though, it was great. Worth noting is that for my particular setup, I'd drop the chain off the outside of the chainring about once a ride until I threw on a device to prevent it from happening any more, which weighed real close to what a FD would have weighed. The novelty and desire to be unique wore off quickly and I went back to a traditional setup and haven't really thought about it since. A cross bike though, different story.

That was also a 9 speed though, a 10 would make the jumps a little better but still, they're large gaps for road conditions.

Simplicity would be the best reason. A 50-32 gives me the same low gear as the 36-23 I have now, and the high gear would be the same. I'd want 12 gears, though. 11,12,13,14,15,17,19,21,23,26,29,32.

I run 1x9 on my commuter/trainer - love it. Gets me up most things where I ride and I've not really missed the very low/very high gears (40t ring and a 11-28).

But for my best roadie I'll stick with two rings.

In fact I only run one ring on all my bikes now (except the best roadie) - both mtbs are 1x9, commuter is 1x9, BMX is singlespeed of course. Only the best roadie is on a double.

Yeah, i run a 1x10 on my scapin winterbike, and i love it. I've got a 26-er mtb with only a 34t in the front.

With the exeption, I use the 39t front ring with a 11/23 setup.

I love it. With my 2x10 bike, i'm unable to use the smallest two gears in the back running the 39t in front without the chain hitting the 53 blade.

A 53 blade in the front wouldn't do it for me. it's too large for my cadence/power. (i'm a big fan of the relative small steps on a 11-23 cassette)

With the 1x10, i'm able to use these so desired gears without a problem.

I did align my gears to prevent cross-chaining as much as possible. (optimized it for my most used gears) but a 1x10 setup could cause a quicker chain-wear than a 2x10 though.

I have single speeds, dual chainring, and triple chainring bikes. I probably would not ever build up a single chainring, cassette rear type bike. Just because by the time you add a chainring guide on both sides and have to buy Ergo shifters in pairs, there really isn't much reason to go that route. But I more or less ride with 1x10 and 1x9 setups now on many of my bikes. I don't use the big chainring much. A 42x13 or 40x12 is a big enough gear for the vast majority of my riding. And a low of 42x23 or 40x23 is plenty low enough. The touring bike has a 33 middle ring with 11-32 10 speed cassette. I stay on the 33 ring about 98% of the time.

It's pretty common in cross.

For road 10 is not enough, too big jumps. I'm sure it is fine for cross.
Rohlhoff has 14 speeds, for a reason.

I already do...but it's pretty terrain specific for me, ie hill climb bike/repeats. I really enjoy it...

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Thing 1 & Thing 2 & Thing 3

If you are going to do that go with an internal hub like the alfine 11!!!
http://www.shimano.com/publish/content/global_cycle/en/us/index/products/0/alfine.html

I love my 8 speed 29er I'll get a picture of it on here tonight

I'm only ever riding in the big ring when staying away from the climbs in winter and bad weather training (53 / 11-23). Guess that's a yes then ... damn you make me want to build one.

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Bikes: Raceur, Beateur

I like the idea of getting rid of excess.

Although very slightly of topic, in some TT environments I have often found that I do not use the entire range of my cassette never mind your smaller ring. So on that front I can drop the weight of a heavy'ish TT bike along with reducing the frontal cross sectional area if I remove the inner ring, shifter, gear cables and replace the fd with a low profile guide. All in all saving ~200g. Heck I could even sell those parts on, by some new gears and really fine tune my set up relative to a race on a tight budget. Either that or buy one item of weight weenie royalty....

In terms of a general cycling environment it sounds like fun to run a 1x10 setup. If you really look into what you are losing out on it is only really +/- 4 gears as most of the ratios are repeated. That said if I am to tackle high grades it would very much prefer to have more range and ratios then less!

I've thought about it because it's pretty flat where I am and I only really use 2 or 3 speeds in daily riding. But that would have been 14-23 in back for close spaced gears. If I needed a wide range of gears I'd stick to a double.

I never have done it as there is no brake only lever that matches current ergo shape shifters and you still need some guide chain watcher to replace front derailleur. In the end not saving much or really simplifying anything unless you use a down tube shifter.

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Henry

I have a good friend who does all his winter training on a cross bike with 1x10 here in sunny ohio; it is a really great setup in my opinion. Very easy to clean and good cadence training as well when you're on the flats.

On the topic of those internal rear hubs all I could think is how cool a TT bike you could build with one. Imagine how aero everything could get! Build a disc with internal gearing and put it on a aero frame and it could look like a credit card from the front.

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"But when you hit that asphalt down below nothing else matters, your pulse is skyrocketing toward 200"
Speed Concept
Colnago Mapei
S-5 VWD

If I were into TT or Tri I'd totally do that...except I don't think it would catch on. Derailleurs are something like 2-4 percent more efficient than internally geared hubs so people might have a problem with that.

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I'm so rubbish at this.