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I'm going to 1x my gravel bike as don't need the 2x big ring since buying a road bike and want to lose some weight and simplify my set up.
My current set up is a 12-28t cassette and 50/34t front as I did use the bike for a while for gravel and road (2 sets of wheels). I don't have any massive hills around me which I'll be tackling on this bike (which means mega high and low gears are not an issue). I'm thinking 40T front should work well, does this sound right to the STW masses?
28t is the max for my rear mech and I'm not planning to change this, doing this on the cheap with a superstar n/w.
Depends how fit and heavy you are. Lighter guys get away with higher gears as they have less variation in speed between the flats and the hills whereas I always end up spinning out my singlespeed on even slight downhills.
Ive got 42x11-28 on my cx and 39x18 on the sscx.
If its fairly flat i would go 42 and just mash up the hills. Youll gain the time on the descents. If it was hillier id go low.
34x12 is basically 20mpg on the road (or certainly 34x11 is). Do you need a faster gear than that for gravel?
By my (quick, tired) calcs 40/28 is around 34/24 so stick your bike in that kind of gear and see if you need a lower gear.
You'd be able to fit a hanger extender to use a bigger cassette with your mech provide it has the capacity. As for the range it really depends on you and where you ride but I'd aim to get close to a 1:1 ratio if you want to do any off road hills that are loose and or steep. For commuting I used an 11-28 with a 38t and it was fine, just had to stomp up a couple of short steep bits. Now using 11-40 with 40t and it's a really good spread
Whatever you do is going to be a compromise, as 12-28T really isn't much range.
I used to run 32T front with 11-32 on the rear on my CX bike, which was OK for racing, but you'd spin out quite quickly on the road if was even slightly downhill. I've now settled on 36 with 11-36 which gives the same 1:1 bottom end, but a bit more range.
I'd probably go for 34, which'll give you 20mph at 90rpm top end.
I did the same, 42t oval with 11-40 Sunrace plus wolftooth link.
Wish I hadn't, shifting is lousy going down the block. The cassette rattles over rough stuff unless in the big cog and sucks in the 11t. Then there's the dummy left hand shifter!
I'm nursing a leg injury at the mo, so since I'm not going to be doing any climbing for a bit, will put the 105 11-32 back on, take off the wolftooth, and see if that makes it bearable.
Just googled hanger extender, so for about a fiver I can use this to run a spare 11-36 cassette with a sram rival short cage mech?
Edit - actually it looks like I’d only gain 4t more capacity so I’d have to buy a new cassette.