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My wife has this bike https://www.marinbikes.com/bikes/2017-fairfax-sc5
It has a 11-34 cassette and a 32/46 and a 32/48 chainset. 10sp flat bar shifters and a long cage mech, all Tiagra.
My wife struggles with the complexity of the gears (no need to go into why please) and I’d like to go 1x but don’t have much money to spend on doing it.
She certainly needs maybe one more lower gear ratio so I don’t want to lose anything at the bottom end but the 48/11 top gear is never used so losing at the top end is ok.
I’ve looked at Spa Cycles as they do some cheap 1x chainsets which look useful, I was thinking of maybe a 40 or 38t single ring and a 11-something cassette to suit but I’m not sure what the max size of rear cassette would be with the long cage Tiagra rear mech.
Also would I need narrow wide/clutch mech for road riding/light gravel use?
Can’t really afford to go to 11sp unless someone has a cheap shifter and mech to sell me!
I recently did a budget 1X conversion on my mtb, 9 speed though:
1X narrow wide chainring £10 (ebay)
deraileuer extender £5 (ebay)
wide range cassette £30 (CRC)
New chain £10 (Merlin)
£55 all in and it's been faultless, may be a little more for 10 speed.
See the Microshift wide range 9sp - currently on sale at CRC I believe.
The chainset is a weird one so I can’t fit a new ring unfortunately, I’d get more back selling it as a whole anyway and buying a new chainset.
See the Microshift wide range 9sp – currently on sale at CRC I believe.
The bike is 10sp. I’d like to keep the current 10sp shifters and rear mech if possible
Forgot about mech extender, thanks.
Bit concerned about gaps between gears. Might be best going smaller on the front and having a tighter cassette.
Planet X have some cheap cassettes - Tifosi brand. They are available in 10 speed but currently the largest range is 11-36 in stock for £33.
They have wider ranges advertised but greyed out at the moment.
I've not used them so can't comment on how good they are.
Bit concerned about gaps between gears. Might be best going smaller on the front and having a tighter cassette.
That and total range may be the price you have to pay for easier to operate gears.
10sp extender and larger 'cheap' Cassette would work well.
an 11-34 cassette is plenty of range for a non serious cyclist, I'd just fit a new chainset with a single ring, chainring size based on what she needs to ride up hill. So if the 32T inner ring isn't giving a low enough gear, get a crankset that will take a 30T ring. 30x11 seems like a low top gear but will give nearly 20mph at a cadence of just over 90rpm and 4mph (brisk walking pace) at 60rpm in 30:34.
If you want to spend a load more money and change things to fit a bigger cassette you need to know that the existing 10speed Tiagra 4700 rear shifter and derailleur have the same shift ratio as Shimano Road+GRX 11 speed RDs, so it will work only with Tiagra 4700 shifters and Shimano 11 speed road +GRX shifters. But also that 11 speed road cassettes are spaced at 3.74mm and MTB 11spd is spaced at 3.9mm so you can't mix and match without screwing up the indexing. If you want to fit a cassette with a lower bottom gear than your existing 11-34 you'll need to buy a MTB rear derrailleur, cassette, chain and shifter.
Just fitted one of these to my spare bike
10sp, 11-42 £24
maybe not as slick as shimano but seems v decent so far
30t snail n/w chain ring and mech extender off ebay /amazon
and cheapest deore crankset you can find and youre sorted
Clutch mech not needed for gravel, but chainstay protection if u dont have it
The bike is 10sp. I’d like to keep the current 10sp shifters and rear mech if possible
TBH you'd potentially just about cover the cost of a microshift 1x8 or 1x9 setup flogging all the removed Tiagra bits on ebay (it's at least worth looking at what those are selling for before you decide). Does it really matter if she as fewer clicks if the operation is simpler?
Failing that you could just opt for a Deore or Sunrace 11-40 - 10speed cassette, a goat link or similar and find a chainring to suit the existing chainset (FSA Omega 4 arm Asymetric? what's the BCD?) then you can keep the Rear Mech/shifter/Cranks and it simplifies the job.
Bit concerned about gaps between gears. Might be best going smaller on the front and having a tighter cassette.
You should be able to get a 4700 mech to play nicely with an (relatively cheap/common) 11-36 cassette without an extender if you can find a 34t or smaller N/W ring that might be the easiest route as it will just about reproduce the current 32-34 (0.94:1) bottom ratio. if you want to go lower you'll need a 32t ring.
The very, very simplest solution might just be to swap her cassette to 11-36, remove the front shifter and big ring (you will want some shorter bolts) and leave the existing 32t ring on with the front mech acting as a simple guide, set with the limit screws. That would be a fully reversible change and she can get used to the idea of riding a bike with one shifter, operating gears at the back, and then decide if more range is necessary or not.
A clutch mech isn't necessary, the majority of chain retention comes from the N/W ring profile mech with the chain, especially for road/light off-road use.
Once she's used to using a 1x drivetrain, then go shopping for either a replacement N/W chainring or chainset.
It might be worth looking for one of the variants of square taper Sunrace N/W chainset (e.g. FCM80U 32T):
https://www.sunrace.com/en/products/front-cranksets
They are available in a range of ring sizes can be found for competitive price (plus a Square taper BB) depending where you buy.
N/W rings to suit newer Road chainsets with Asymetric bolt patterns are about, but you need to know (i.e. measure or see if details are stamped on the existing rings) what you've actually got to start with.
yet Another option is not to use a N/W ring at all and to fit a top guide to keep the chain on...
You've got choices, the costs increase the more parts you change basically.
I'm not very clued up on specifics, but I think the Tiagra 4700 series is a bit unique, in that it doesn't work well with other 10-speed bits because it works on an 11-speed motion range... Or something like that.
The chainset is a weird one so I can’t fit a new ring unfortunately, I’d get more back selling it as a whole anyway and buying a new chainset.
Cheap 120mm BCD chainrings do exist. Unless there's some really weird incompatibility.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/124277534709
I'd try just switching to say a 38t and see if she notices a lack of top/bottom end with the existing 11-34.
11-36 might work without any other changes, but it can be iffy, I'm running 11-28 on a mech designed for 11-27 and it's sub-optimal (needs a lot of B-tension and I suspect that'll lead to skipping at some point and it really doesn't like certain gears combinations) so it can work, but I'd not bank on it. An RX-400 (GRX) mech will do it though and work with 4700 shifters (they are the odd ones out).
Although at that point it's probably cheaper to just buy some 2nd hand MTB mech+shofters, I know I've got a couple of sets leftover.
I’m tempted to move the gears from my MTB over to it being as I don’t ride it any more. 1x11sp XT kit.
I’m not very clued up on specifics, but I think the Tiagra 4700 series is a bit unique, in that it doesn’t work well with other 10-speed bits because it works on an 11-speed motion range… Or something like that.
Yep 4700 uses the same shimano road 11 speed cable pull (1.4:1), which is different to MTB 10 speed (Dynasis - 1.15:1) and all previous Road 7/8/9/10 speed groups (1.7:1). Yet all 10 speed shimano (and SRAM actually) groups use the same cassette spacing...
The basic upshot is that you can use more expensive (road) derailleur with those 4700 Tiagra shifters, but not a cheaper one, or any MTB mechs. Considerate of them eh...
Your life would actually be easier with Sora.
Your Old XT parts should move over just fine, the Cassette will fit the FH body, the shifter will fit the bars.