[Closed] 1 x on the road (10 - 42 cassette)

it's not an uncommon configuration, plenty of gravel/cx/etc run it, so must work reasonably well.

Depends how and what you ride. I can take my gravel bike out with road tyres on and its fine as long as you are happy to sit up a little and not worry too much about speed. The gaps in gearing mean you may have to adjust your cadence (which is a good thing to learn).

My winter/commuter bike is 1x10 running a 40T chainring and an 11-36T cassette and there's only a few hills around here (Dales) that I'd struggle on with that. Top end I spin out at about 45km/h but the bike's pretty heavy so it's hard work at that end.

The "gaps" between ratios is a bit of a red herring - no-one complains about gaps in the ratios when using the big ring on a 2x setup and that's a 50T for a compact or 52/53T for traditional.

The “gaps” between ratios is a bit of a red herring – no-one complains about gaps in the ratios when using the big ring on a 2x setup and that’s a 50T for a compact or 52/53T for traditional.

But you wouldn't be running a 10-42T cassette with those. You'd more likely be running 11-28T or 11-32T which would have smaller gaps.

Partly true but the central part of the block tends to be similar. Also older 7/8spd cassettes had similar "gaps" to modern 10/11spd but obviously not the range. The only gap I've noticed on recent cassettes is on those Shimano ones where they basically slapped a 40/42/46T cog onto an 11-36T cassette and the shift went: 32 => 36 => 46

I don’t see it working , not on the road bike. One of the reasons being that I can be on a long spin and not have to touch the front mech for one or two hours, sometimes more, but when I get to a climb it usually ramps up steep around here.
But also, on the flats it’s nice to find a gear that gives you the cadence you want, especially when you’re eight hours deep into a ride.

The gaps in gearing mean you may have to adjust your cadence (which is a good thing to learn).

It’s good to be able to use different cadences on climbs and flats and to switch between higher end cardio (high cadence) and more muscular use (low cadence), and both standing and sitting, but it’s a pain in the backside and not a good thing to be forced into a cadence when and by not having the right gear or the gear you’d like. If not careful, it would lead to power or wattage spikes and burnout during a long ride .

My Gravel bike had 36t oval and 11—40 cassette. It was fine, 23ish mph at a decent spin but low enough to climbing off road.

hi – many people running this on the road. Thinking probably 44 chainring with 10 – 42. Plenty of range but maybe too big gaps between gears?

You'll have plenty of range.

The gaps, it's down to personal preference.

I've got the same set up on my commuter and it's perfect. My road bike, which is actually a gravel bike with road tyres, runs the same but with a 42t up front. It's done everything from Alps road trips, Cingles and Paris Roubaix through to various Surrey Hills singletrack trails and I've never had an issue with the gaps or the range.

Some folks like it, some don't. You'll not know really until you try it for yourself.

If you’re riding mostly on your own, and the gap jumps don’t bother you, crack on... I have found on a CX/Gravel bike that 1x is just as effective as it is on an MTB, but my own experience of 1x on the road (with a closer ratio 11-36 cassette no less) was that the ratio gaps are too big if you’re riding in groups. In fact even an 11-30 can feel gappy in a group ride to me!

Doesn’t work for me on Road but works well off road. I find I stall on some climbs where I’m trying to take speed into the hill.
The below is the cogs within my 11-42 cassette.
10-12-14-16-18-21-24-28-32-36-42
I like to drop to an easier gear with the gradient, so one gear change at a time (unless it goes super steep). I can keep a good cadence without spinning to much and losing momentum. With the jump in gears I end up spinning and losing speed.
Off road it works fine as generally I’m not taking that much speed into a climb. So going from 21, 24, 28, 32, 36 feels ok as I’m already going at a slower pace where the changes will match my cadence.
Hope that makes sense?

I've just set up my new gravel bike with 42 / 11-40T. Similar range but a bit lower geared to the 50-34 / 11-28 I use on the road.

Can't say I notice the gaps, but I find the noise in the lower gears annoying on 1x, and wouldn't fancy it on my road bike for that reason alone. I'm using an Easton chainring. Not sure if a Shimano one would be any quieter.

Running a 10-42T cassette and 38T oval chainring on my gravel bike and there are definitely occasions on the road where you feel like you are between 2 gears - probably in the lower half of the cassette where you have the larger  jumps of 3 or 4 teeth.

42t oval on a 10-42 here

Sometimes I drop it to 40t if I'm heading anywhere hilly, such as Ventoux

I’ve got a 11-42 on the CX/Gravel bike - ****s me right off on road sections as I do miss the close ratio setup of the road bike

My CX bike used for road/gravel has 38 with 11-36. I could really do with a touch more at either end. I imagine 40 or 42 with 11-42 would be great, and 10-42 even better. In addition to a spendy cassette, the former would require a new higher capacity mech and the second a new mech + new freehub, so am holding off till something needs replacing.

got to say I'm a bit confused by SRAM. A few years back they said they'd never make another front mech, but their 12 speed stuff has double cranksets with 11 - 36 cassette

I'd have thought a 12 speed 10 - 40 or similar would be great running 1 x

It really depends on what particular sort of road bike you are considering it for and how many clicks you are planning to have between that 10t sprocket and the 43t.

I am running 1x9 (42t chainring / 11-34 cassette) on my winter/commuter bike which has suited that particular bike but its not exactly a racey bike, and the jumps are noticeable but not a significant issue.

I've been toying with stricking an 11-40, 10 or 11 speed cassette on (friction shifter makes it a bit easier to change the number of cogs on the back just as an extension of the experiment and to see if I can make the bike more able to deal with longer distance loaded touring type riding without resorting to a front mech...

If you're expecting to race and/or be 'competitive' in sportive and club events then I'd stick to 2x for now. I think 2x12(+?)has potential, but I betcha SRAM/shimano are hanging on till 13 speed to furnish you with a 9t sprocket (ref 'capreo') they know they can do it... 😉

got to say I’m a bit confused by SRAM. A few years back they said they’d never make another front mech, but their 12 speed stuff has double cranksets with 11 – 36 cassette

Well, the fact that the one pro team to have tried it were publicly critical of it and then went bust can't have helped.

I think the reality is that the advantages for road just aren't as clear as for off road.

Chain retention isn't a big issue on road, and changes from up hill to down hill are generally less frequent, so managing a front mech just isn't that hard.

On the flip side 1x gives you worse chainline, noisier drivetrain and bigger gaps all of which are more of an issue on road than off.

Interestingly, one of the problems that Aqua Blue had running 1x was dropped chains, so for some reason it didn't even achieve that benefit.

If you ride on your own and don’t mind what cadence you use then the ease of use makes it a great idea. I did over 10,000km and 100,000m of climbing on a 1x drop bar bike last year.

My gravel bike wears either 38 or 42 on the front and 10-42 or 11-36 on the back.

The only time the gearing isn’t perfect is when riding in a fast group or when trying to do intervals at a defined power. Last week I was trying to sit at a wattage and my cadence was either annoyingly just too low or annoyingly just too high. If I didn’t care about what my power was it would never have bothered me!

38t on the front and 10-42 on the back here. Been great for Audaxes, mixed road/bridleway rides. Spins out on the road at 26/28mph which is fine with me. It’s not the bike for trying to smash it up on, the 44c tyres take the edge off 😄
I’ve used a 42t as well as it’s ok but probably overgeared for the riding. I’m pleased I went to the 10-42.

I think it's so much about where you ride... I like it, but I'm never going to ride up ventoux or something, so it's geared for winching the 1 mile climb from my work, for blasting down the same road as a descent, and for unchallenging pedalling. 11-32 mtb block and IIRC a 48T ring.

But it'd be flat out unsuitable for some stuff. And I know people are more bothered about gearing jumps on the road (I'm not, but I'm not a proper road rider)

Tomorrow I’ll be fitting an interesting setup - 40t front with 9-34 ethirteen cassette. Cassette is 270g for 380% range.

Previously run 44 x 11-42 which has been good, but I don’t tend to use the 42t at all. The 40x34 is still lower than a 28 on a compact so should get me up everything my proper road setup did.

We’ll see how it goes in due course.

On gaps depends on the terrain you ride. If flat then large gaps might be annoying, but live anywhere hilly then you won't notice the gaps as you're changing gear so often.

But when I'm running 11-42 1x on my MTB and on more XC rides doesn't feel annoying at all so think you'll be fine.

I don't really get why people want 1x on road bikes.

On the flat, especially with wind in the equation, I want a close ratio cassette.

In hilly areas, I want the extremes of both high and low gears so that I can pedal both down and up things. For anyone who reckons you're not pedalling past however many mph downhill, I still want to be able to put in a hard pedal stroke to get me around a corner / out of trouble / whatever. Way more confidence inspiring if you have some resistance to your pedal stroke.

but I betcha SRAM/shimano are hanging on till 13 speed to furnish you with a 9t sprocket (ref ‘capreo’) they know they can do it…

How much do you wanna bet...? The Pro's will kick off about a 9T, I can imagine many of them being unahppy about SRAM's 10T which isn't an issue for most of us, but if you're a sprinter putting your neck on the line and pushing 2KW for short bursts, you need to know your gears aren't going to jump! I had an E13 cassette for a short while, even when new, if I put any power down, the chain would jump and skip readily on the 9T, and even once or twice on the 10T too. I'm used to SRAM 10T cassettes, and these are more reliable, but there's a very good reason that bicycle freehubs haven't been made any smaller for road bikes for a very long time IMO... Anything smaller than an 11T isn't very reliable if you're putting a properly powerful rider on the bike!

Being able to have a decent range and still pick just the right gear for the gradient and the weather conditions is a big plus whatever type of road riding you do. I think that 1X is too much of compromise, with no killer advantage to make it worthwhile.

My road bike is 44 with 10-42

The easy gears are fine, it’s the bottom where you loose out. Climbing is not the issue it’s 28+ mph where you don’t have a lot of choice and spin out over about 35.

I would imagine riding in a fast group on fairly flat roads 20+ average would be no good, but my riding tends to be in small groups on hills 15 average on a good day.

You do need to vary your cadence a bit for the gaps.

Rolling hills where you would otherwise be changing between rings a lot are good. The silence is good. Simplicity and never ever dropping a chain is good.

So it’s a compromise, there are a few minor benefits, if it works for you or not depends on your riding.

44 / 10 is about the same as compact 50 / 11 so that wouldn't be an issue for me unless nailing it downhill

I love the idea of a 1x road bike, but for me anyway, it’s not so much a matter of range as it is the gaps.

I had a quick play with a gear calculator last night - I’m currently on 50/34 and 11-25 11 speed. Using a 12 speed SRAM 10-33 cassette with a 44 ring gives me the same bottom end, and only a little missing off the top, but the gaps at the bottom of the cassette are enormous compared to the 2x setup - exactly where I’d want a decent variety of ratios for extended climbing!

Anything smaller than an 11T isn’t very reliable if you’re putting a properly powerful rider on the bike!

Perhaps, but being realistic about it most road bikes aren't sold to "properly powerful" riders are they.

You're average punter can lay his/her hands on a 105 equipped 2x11 bike today with an 11-32 cassette and 50/34 rings which means ratios from 4.54 to 1.06 and they end up believing that they 'need' the same range.

Most will almost never use that 50-11 ratio but from a marketing perspective you can't give that up, and a gear close to 1:1 (which wasn't really sold as an option before 11speed) is actually more useful to most for climbing.

The advantage of a 9t is simply that it allows the big S's to achieve that magic 4.5:1~ish (4.44) ratio, with a 40t chainring. A smaller chainring means you can keep the top sprocket size down and reproduce that 1.06ish ratio with a just a 38t sprocket because nobody likes "dinner plates". So 12 (or speculatively 13) sprockets between 9 and 38 teeth is a credible possibility.

You're right, such a drivetrain probably wouldn't suit a macho torque mountain of a man, but then that's not actually the average customer.

I also think we're looking a good long way down the line, that's not a product you'll see tomorrow.

The silence is good.

I find 1x a lot noiser than 2x in lower gears as you've got a worse chainline running onto tall, N/W teeth on the chainring.

Simplicity and never ever dropping a chain is good.

I really can't remember the last time I dropped a chain on the road, and more often than not, you can get the chain back on without stopping if you've got a front mech.

My road bike is 1 x 10, 39t with 12-25 sprocket works absolutely fine & no need for n/w chainring on the road and on an old triple spider with good chain line so nice and quiet too.

Come to think of it I left the 53t,30t chainrings and front mech in place for when I'm tired or trying to reach 60mph down Kop Hill 😀

Been running 42x11-36 on my cx commuter for quite a few years now, it's great for on and off road commutes, off road riding and its fine for road heavy mixed rides too, havent tried a really long road ride on it but Ive done some pretty damn long off road routes (that being said, when I jump on the roadbike I do appreciate the close ratio gearing)

The gaps between gears in the setup you suggested are about the same as you get at the top of a standard block compared to a proper road setup, but they're huge at the lower end, take a look at the gear step on here. If you're an mtber who wants to do a bit of road work then it's fine, if you're a roadie then you probably wouldnt have asked the question 🙂

A few clubmates have gravel bikes with 1x as their winter bikes, with road tyres and mudguards fitted.

None of them are enthusiastic about it as a permanent all year round roadbike set up, reporting concerns around gaps in gearing, cadence and losing one or two gears at either end of the range. Less of an issue on winter plodding rides, but none of them like it for faster group or training rides.

It might work for some, depends on your riding and local terrain.

Test ride on 9-34 done, and it’s fine for me. Shifting is nice, it was a little noisy but that’s probably because I forgot to lube up in my excitement 😳

I tackled a 5km 5% average and short 10%+ efforts and I wasn’t wanting for more gears, either range or ratios.

I get that on the flat it matters more. My riding is 90% in the peaks and I’m never racing or riding in big groups, so the simplicity and lightness are good in my book.

@cakeandcheese, Interesting, I assume you chose the 9-34 (11speed?) because it gives sensible steps for the range and you can get a conventional road mech to play nicely with it?

I have to say I would need more low end due to being a bit of a biffer, the 9-39 looks sort of tempting as its essentially the same drivetrain I described back up the page.
But thems is expensive cassettes! Even more so once you factor in the likely cost of an XD driver or new hub for most users on road bikes...

It would be good to hear how it goes wear wise, if you get a decent number of miles out of the cassette...

I don't notice the gaps on my 10-42, but then I don't often ride in groups where I need to hit a specific speed/cadence, so I just adjust accordingly.

Riding for extended periods in the lower gears is slightly noisy though, although I only really notice this on big rides like Alps/Ventoux. If you use a non-NW then this reduces the noise but then maybe you'd need an additional guide.

For me, front mechs are like rim brakes vs discs. Once you try 1x it's very hard to go back to all the faff of 2x. The only bike in my house which is 2x is my wife's full-on roadie with Di2.

For me, front mechs are like rim brakes vs discs.

I just dont get this, never had issues with front mechs, they just sit there and work on or offroad. Rear mech on tge other hand, I'd try a replacement for them.

I completely wore out the drivetrain on my Arkose so went 1*11. 42t up front with a Sunrace 40/11 cassette. It replicates granny and only loses the top two or three.
I think I'd go for a 44t chainring next time with a 42t cassette.

Once you try 1x it’s very hard to go back to all the faff of 2x.

Each to their own. I have 1x on various off-road bikes, and can only see disadvantages to it on a road bike. Can't say I find 2x a faff at all.