Best Racing Gravel Bike 2024

If it’s not your n+1, it’s not the gearing preventing that. 46/10 is only 1 mph slower at 100rpm than a 52/11. A 46/10 is good for 37mph at 100rmp, 44mph at 120rpm. Even if you have a 400+ watt FTP, the number of places you’d be limited by gearing is going to be extremely rare.

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Maybe I could N+1 it. I hate mountain bike shoes in a crit, but maybe ill race it wed night and see how I like it in a crit.

How about 85rpm?

Mmm. This is very weird. Looking on website, they only configure it with SRAM…. wonder if @Aeroiseverything would like to weight in?

The site I used only does 10rpm increments, but you are still doing ~30mph at 80rpm. I’m sure there is a site where you can enter the exact cadence. People tend to look at 46 chainrings without the context of the 10 tooth SRAM cassette. It’s gonna be better than a compact 34/50 and just about as good as a 52/36 mid compact running traditional 11 or 12 cassette cog.

I run a 42tooth 1x setup on my gravel bike and I use it for fast road group rides all the time. There are some tailwind situations where it’s a little uncomfortable, but I’ve never been dropped due to gearing and I’m not a fast spinner. Not saying it’s not possible to get dropped, but it would be very rare if you are paying attention in a group. A 46/10 is probably more gearing than anyone needs unless you are pushing over 5w/kg or 400w+ FTP (in my opinion). I’m not saying you wouldn’t want more, but a 46/10 isn’t likely to limit many folks outside the pro peloton.

Almost all people I ride that have a 1x do suffer on false flats and tailwind situations.

I just dont have a scale to weigh it. I can try to get a weight on it soon. My size is also a 58

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I had a 44x11 on my old bike and it was great, but I wanted more gear. I hated being in the 12 and 11 also, just feels like your grinding.

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Yeah, I’m not saying a 42 is my first choice for road, but it’s not a limiter and a 46 is as much gear as pretty much any amateur cyclist needs. I could put a 46 on my 1x setup and still have plenty of climbing gear, but it would buy me nothing except being a little more comfy in the brief situations where I have to spin a bit fast. That said, I don’t have a 400+w FTP either.

I don’t know where you are located @oldandfast but the specialized dealer in my area offers a legit demo where you can get out and ride with the bike. I demo’d a crux comp and it was such a great bike and that is their entry level crux. I think it tipped the scales at 17 lbs for a size 52 with the 37/37 pathfinder pros and carbon bottle cages. I think you had an issue with the cables but I never even noticed them when bombing down the single track. :slight_smile:

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You are absolutely right.

I’m just north of 4 watt/kg and a 46 with 10/36 is perfect. At cruisin speed (33 km/h) I’m in the middle of the cassette at around 90 rpm.

If you creep towards the 5 watt/kg you can go to a 48 or 50 depending on absolute numbers.

This is something people forget about when figuring gearing. I have a 44/10 (a 46 won’t fit) which is, for the most part, fine with a tailwind and/or a slight downhill without spinning out too much but in regular conditions it puts your usual pace and rpm closer to the middle of the cassette. My bike originally came with a 42/11 as the biggest gear and I spent the majority of my time at the bottom of the cassette which isn’t ideal for efficiency and drivetrain wear.

I have a 10/36 and 10/50 setup. With the 10/50 I have mostly all of the big gear I need and can still climb any hill with relative ease.

Sometimes with a solid tailwind I could definitely use a 46 or 48 but that’s pretty rare.

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Agree. People tent to focus to much on jumps per sprockets and on the excesses on the low and high end of the cassette and use cases.

They should focus on what kind of riding they do. Flats, rolling, hilly or mountains and then make sure that with th gearing you sit in the middle of the cassette 80% of the time. And for the 20% they should focus on the smallest and largest gears.

This also applies to racing. But then you should also take into account at specific parts of the route where you expect attacks or attack yourself that you have some sprockets left.

And this al can be done with a 1x setup. Especially with 12 or even 13 speeds.

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Thats why i disliked my 1x set up. It was fine while on rollers or climbing, but once we got a tail wind on a flat section I was down in my 11/12/13 and i felt like I could feel every revolution. There were a few rides I have done with my 1x set up where we were in the gutter at 33mph for extended amount of time, group is shattered across the road. I can make it work, but my life is going to be better with more gear.

Unfortunately the sram 10t is game changing for 1x compared to being stuck with 11t. I think with the 10t you can get good enough range with 1x. With the 11t you’re gonna have to compromise in some way since you’re probably looking at realistically 11-34t since it’s shimano, and therefore would want 2x.

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What if it’s both or all of the above? I run 1x XPLR and absolutely loathe the jumps in the small sprockets 10,11,13,15 and would rather have 10,11,12,13,14,15 then couldn’t care less about the bigger jumps when going slower. I absolutely do use the 44t climbing gear and occasionally grind in the 10t sprocket. When it’s flat I want smooth cadence jumps. When it pitches up I want gears to get me up there. Why not both?

Your scenario is a bit out of touch for where I ride. I tend to use the whole casette because that’s the point, right. I can’t set up my bike everytime I head out and change chainrings and cassettes. Although I did recently get a 10-33 and deep wheels for the Groadbike and ran that setup with a 44t on a flat course. The gearjumps were much better than with the XPLR casette. But when it pitches up 10-15% I‘ll be lost with the 44 up front. Yes, the XPLR derailleur can handle the 10-33 casette although it’s not officially supported

Using the whole cassette is the point… Of course… but having your most often used gearing near the centre of the cassette gives you the most usable range in both directions.

Of course there are going to be outliers in regards to riders, terrain, courses, etc. but pairing a chainring with a cassette that allows you to spend more time in the mid-range is preferable, most of the time, to one where you’re in, say, the 11-15 range 80% of the time.

Sounds like Ekar or a 2x setup is best for you. But again in most situations, those should be setup so you’re using the mid-range gearing more often.

I was right there with you when I first started riding 1x and wide cassettes for gravel riding/racing. I was a card-carrying cadence diva and stuck with 2x for a while. I ended up doing a bunch of training on the road (including pretty fast group rides) on my mtb while training for leadville a couple years ago and it totally threw my cadence sensitivity out the window. My checkpoint came with the xplr w 10/44 and I actually run in in mullet setup (10/50) pretty much all the time if I have anything on the schedule with climbing (I’ve had in on for months prepping for unbound). I just don’t notice the jumps any more and I honestly think the cadence flexibility has made me a stronger cyclist. I actually believe it helps with fatigue by working at different cadences on long rides (might all be in my mind, I’ve never seen any science that backs that up). N=1 and all the crap, but I’d honestly just keep the 10/50 on all the time even for road stuff if I didn’t have to share a pretty expensive AXS RD with my MTB (and those big eagle cassettes are pretty heavy and I’m too cheap to buy the high end lighter version). Not saying others would come to the same conclusion after riding with the big jumps, but figured I’d share my history since I used to be super sensitive to it. It almost makes we want to try single speed to see how my body would react to dramatically wider cadence swings, but that might be a bridge too far for my knees.

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The responses above where already sufficient. But I still have an addition.

With a 46 10/36 the jumps with a rotor cassette are: 10,11,12,13,14,15,17,19,21,24,27,31,36. So you have the same range as a 50/34 11/30 compact. But miss one unique gear.

You can play around with a bigger cassette if you want to for extremely mountaines terrain. But all in all you can manage yourself with a good cassette.

Yes, I agree. Looking back on it I should’ve went 2x GRX but liked the SRAM system better with the swappable batteries and wanted to try 1x on the (all)road. I tried out Ekar but didn’t like the thumbshifter. I have blips in the drops and would miss them on a mechanical groupset. And I think the 1x would work for me just fine if the XPLR casette would be thighter spaced in the small cogs. There is a Rotor casette with 11-39 or 11-46. Might need to buy another cage for the derailleur, HG freehub and KMC chain to test that out. The Rotor casette has thigther cogs in the ‘fast’ gears, which I’d prefer.

I identify as a card-carrying cadence diva, no doubt. The 11 to 13t jump means a jump of more than 10 rpm @35-40kph, in which I spend a lot of time doing Z2 outdoors. With undulating terrain I shift from 11 to 13 to 15 a lot and I still try to adapt to the cadence jumps.

I find it interesting that you were training with your MTB on the road and that this helped you become less sensitive to cadence jumps. I run a 34t with an eagle casette and the jumps are really noticeable to me on flat gravel/asphalt roads, less so on undulating terrain like trails and climbs because the speed is usually slower. I think training with TR made me more cadence-concious as I was before :man_shrugging:

thank you for the input. I will try out the Rotor casette once the XPLR wears out. They have 11-39 and 11-46 12 speed casettes. I won’t buy a new groupset just for this bike. I’m stuck with 1x now and have to make it work with another casette as SRAM doesn’t offer what I want (yet). There is still no RED casette for XPLR and I hope they come out with something like 10-40 or 10-42 with thigther spacing in the small cogs. Would save me a cage, freehub and a new chain…

define extremely mountainous terrain. 7-10% gradients on sustained climbs is normal for the Alps. For 10kph on a 10% climb I would have to push 300W @85rpm with a 1:1 gear ratio. I agree that the 46/33 with a 10-36 casette would’ve been my ideal setup or GRX 48,31 with 11-34. Somehow I was determined to go 1x on this bike. Now I know better.

For me the Best Racing Gravel Bike in 2023 comes with a 2x GRX with external batteries or a 2x Sram Setup that doesn’t throw chains left and right :sweat_smile:

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