It’s the blue one, and he’s said £2k to me (because we’re friends and it’s a hassle-free sale to someone who lives within walking distance). He thinks he has reached the point where n+1 = divorce 
Steep for me is 15%+, or prolonged at 11%+. Where I live, there aren’t many climbs longer than 2-3k, but 10%+ is quite common. I currently run 52-36 and 11-30. The 36-30 gets used on one or 2 very steep sections locally.
So then you may want to swap the 50-tooth chain ring for a 44-tooth chain ring if you want to replicate the ratio 36:30 = 1.2 exactly or go with a 46-tooth chain ring if you think 1.28 suffices for you.
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I think the above seems like the best plan, a slightly smaller chainring to help you add a couple of RPM when you are climbing.
Weight on the bike isn’t hugely important, but 11-42 cassettes are bricks!
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~3.3 but it’s been a while since I tested last. There are no very long or very steep climbs near me, but Ditchling Beacon (~1.4km, avg 9% max 16%) is manageable.
The hidden bolt is special in that you can fit a tool to tighten and loosen it on the non-drive side but you have to make sure that you put the knurled nut on the driveside which gives the bolt some purchase. It looks very similar to the non-knurled ones, so pay special attention. You don’t need a tool to fit between the crank arm and the nut, it’s just the nut itself that is special.
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Its really easy, not quite sure what the concern is? The sram chainring bolts take a 4 allen/hex key on one side and a 5 on the other, so you don’t need a special tool. The ‘hidden’ bolt sits behind the crankarm, so you can only reach it from one side - it just takes one of the allen keys (think the smaller one), but you just undo it like any bolt. The nut part stays in the chainring, its easier to just use a new one with a new chainring.
If you want to use a non-hidden bolt chainring with the crankset, what I’ve done is glue the nut part to the chainring and then torque it up as the last bolt, once the others were tight.
Now I understand what it is, I’m not concerned I just didn’t understand the setup. It now makes sense.
Tbh, I can see how “you can’t fit a tool behind it” causes concern! But you can, just only on one side.
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The captive bolt came loose on my Sram Force crankset, but its easy enough to just remove the spider and attach the chainring on that! Of course, requires the cranks to come off first…
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That’s a great solution!
Not strictly relevant to the conversation, but this thread reminded me of the sad tale of Aqua Blue cycling and the 3T strada…
Have you had any issues with seatpost drop btw?
Excuse me, I need to hug my knees and rock back and forth for a while.
Actually it’s not all that bad. I did get it. Came up with a system which seems to have eliminated it:
- Ensure seat post and seat tube are clean (no oil from your hands! Wear gloves!)
- Apply carbon assembly paste
- Set height, mark with tape, tighten clamp to recommended max torque
- Install bike in trainer
- Grab the saddle, move it around some, re-torque clamp
- Repeat (5) until torque wrench clicks instantly (this means the seat clamp has mostly settled)
- Hop on the bike and start a free ride
- Pedal for a few minutes
- Hop off, check height, re-torque bolt
- Rinse and repeat (8) and (9), with larger time durations spent pedalling until the torque wrench clicks instantly (this suggests that the clamp has fully settled)
- When you do a hard workout or have been on a bumpy road for the first time, check that the torque wrench still clicks instantly.
Might sound like a faff but it only really took an hour and doubled as an easy workout. Mine has been stable for nearly a year now 
Another thing: The saddle clamp torx bolt is a T27. Yes, a 27. A 25 wrench will kinda fit, but get yourself a 27. Then do what I did and send (polite) hate mail to 3T for putting a T27 anywhere near a bicycle. The stem has rear-facing bolts to save you one ten-millionth of a watt of aerodynamic drag and render your torque wrench useless as it can’t fit. Replace it.
It’s a lovely bike for all the weird Gerard Vroomen episodes of madness. I bloody love riding it. It feels fast and is surprisingly comfortable.
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That’s hilarious but I suspect may save me hours of frustration. Thank you!
I do sometimes wonder why people who are supposedly gifted engineers come up with such absurd designs.
There was a reason Aqua Blue hated the bike. I have the exact same group on my Specialized Crux. When I use the Crux for mixed road/gravel rides the gearing is annoying on the road. Basically the large jumps between gears and running out of gear on downhills is the most annoying.
I converted it to a pure gravel bike with a Shimano 11-40. I had to buy the long cage rear derailleur. I rode that with a 38 in the front for the last couple of years. On gravel it was fine except for this downhill KOM I could never get because I would always run out of gear.
I recently moved and swapped the 38 for a 42. We have no gravel around here so I’m just using the bike to ride paved trails and greenways when I just want to cruise on fatter tires.
I’d only get a bike like this if you can live with a 48/50 with a normal road cassette or at worst the 11-36 that comes with it.
Well, I’ve persuaded him to let me have the bike for Friday and Saturday (my 2 days off) so I will try it and report back!
I agree with others here that the best plan would be ride it for a bit first, then drop to a smaller chainring if you feel you need it.
But if you want a larger range than 11-36, 3T reports that you can fit up to a 11-42 with the stock medium cage derailleur. Check out their blog post here: Strada Mountain Champion - 3T Blog
I just picked up a Strada at the beginning of the summer and love it. Hope you do as well!
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Been exclusively riding 1x for ~4 years, and there’s some really good advice in this thread. I agree that you should try the current range and see where it’s limiting you—50x11-36 is my preferred gear range on my SuperSix. But! I hate the SRAM 11-36 cassette because of the huge gap between the 19 and 22. I got a Sunrace 11-36 and that thing is chef’s kiss —so good. The jumps are great and the range is perfect for me. As already said above, gear-calculator.com is your best friend.
I run 48x11-40 on my CAADX, which is my comfort-drive, more versatile bike. I get a better climbing gear (that I never use lol) out of it and the jumps on the 11-40 are almost identically to the 11-36. Riding 1x has taught me to be comfortable at a wide range of cadences (from 85 to 110), which I think is an added benefit.
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Thank you all for the excellent and comprehensive advice. I now have plenty of food for thought!
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That’s a good point, although all SRAM 11-speed cassettes all the way down to 11-28 do have this larger jump. So this doesn’t have anything to do with the 11-36 in particular.
I do have a SRAM 11-32 cassette on my wheel and Shimano’s 11-32 cassette on my indoor trainer. Overall I prefer the gearing of the SRAM cassette. The extra closely-spaced gears at the bottom and the magic ratios (which is irrelevant on 1x) more than make up for it. For my riding, only occasionally do I feel that I would like a gear in between. It seems these gears are in no-man’s-land, i. e. I am either faster or slower 
(Surely, mostly faster! )
So as the others have said, try before you buy.
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