Check this out:http://velonews.competitor.com/2012/12/bikes-and-tech/spotted-prototype-sram-cyclocross-single-chainring_269580.

Single chainring up front on a CX bike, without anything to keep the chain in place. Is this a sign of things to come and will we be seeing the SRAM 1x11 setup on a road bike soon?

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A more elegant set up - yes, but I dont see how this can provide both the range of gears of a current 2 x 11 set up and the closeness of ratio that is required for optimum efficiency.

In fact, in an era of 6.8, marginal gains, and the ease of front-ring electronic shifting, perhaps (though less elegant) a triple setup would make more sense, even for the professional rider, so that the exact optimum cadence can be achieved at every point.

What Ghisallo says.I'm having trouble buying into the notion that the chainguide requirement has been the major roadblock for 1x setups.

The industry is very good at "creating demand" in a largely saturated market. That's not to say 1x doesn't have it's place, it always had, but if you want to make money, you need to convince people to buy new swag. Everyone knows 650b is the shizzle by now, next hype please.

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I don't see it in general use for the road. In CX and MTB the big jumps between cogs is not as important. I already struggle with the big jumps on an 11-28 cassette on the road. Maybe for TT bikes but really why bother?

Remember Shimano once patented 1X14 drivetrain.

I think 90% of people could do without a front derailleur right now.

In fact I would be willing to bet that 80% of people would not notice a performance drop if they switched to an 8 speed alfine or other IGH in the back.

my cross setup is a 42 front x 13-29 in the back

if you are weary of switching over, try to do some of your normal rides all in the small ring. If you can do 90% of your stuff with that setup, get a larger range cassette and ditch the front derailler, cables, housing, clamps, extra ring, and if you are really a weight weenie: the internals on your left shifter!

I agree. I hardly ever use my FD to get the right cadence. Just to get a lower or higher gearing.

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I don't get what you're saying.

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And I use lower or higher gearing to try to get the right cadence...

No.

No this is not the end of the front derailleur?

Or, no we do not change gear to allow a change in cadence?

Never mind the front derailleur , it was supposed to be the end of the world . I've been living in my underground bunker for the last 6 months , only going out to stockpile curly wurlys ,tunnocks wafers [the king of wafers] and sunny delight. so fu$k off

Really? Even with my 53/39 front and 26/11 cassette I frequently do not have enough range on either end during the same ride. Especially this time of year, doing base and trying to stay in a steady zone 2 my cadence will drop to the 50s in my 39/26 while climbing a big hill when I'd prefer it near 80. Then bombing down in my 53/11 I'm spinning over 110. I know not everyone lives in hilly terrain but lots of people go out of their way to ride hills. Even riding in Florida where it was dead flat I had the pleasure of riding 30+ miles into a 30 mph head wind and then made the return with the tail wind. So even used the extreme ends of my 20 speed gearing there. Related to Ghisallo's post, I find my heart rate to have some correlation with cadence even while maintaining a steady power, so I watch my cadence during base.

No, it's not if you live in a hilly place. For CX that setup would be awesome as you don't need any chain guide thing but for road you want the right gears.

If I ride a 4h ride I will ride between 10 and 50 km/h, there is no way that it would be better with a single chainring instead of my compact crank here.

And believe many other riders think the same about road.

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/jonas l
http://cerrol.wordpress.com (my cyclingblog)

This is nothing new, I once ran a 1x9 MTB with no guides or silyness like that and had no issues. This is nothing new. Way to go SRAM for inventing something that has been done many many a DIY mechanic before.

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