Is anyone riding a classified gear hub on their gravel bike or is considering it? If so, could you share your thoughts on the new 11-40t casette from classified? I know this is marketed for MTB but to me this seems more appropriate on a GRoadbike.
My Gravel frame and most frames I just looked up max out at 44t for a single ring. With the 0.68 ratio you essentially have a 44,30 with 11-XX casette giving you thighter steps and a climbing gear close to or greater than 1:1 with the traditional road casettes. On my bike I have the SRAM XPLR drivetrain with a 42t chainring giving me a faster gear with the 10t cog and a lower gear with the 44t cog (compared to their road casettes).
Now enter the classified MTB 11-40t casette. To me this seems more road/gravel/bikepacking oriented as closer spacing is not really that important on a MTB imho. Pair this casette with a 52t frontring and the 11-40 casette and you have a really fast road bike with a 0.875 granny gear. Apart from bigger steps in the spacing this casettes should have been available from the start imho as it makes far more sense for the classified system than the current offerings.
The big problem to me seems to be that not many gravel frames can use such a big frontring and with a 44t up front and all this proprietary tech in the back not giving you more than closer spacing compared to XPLR I don’t know what to make of this system.
What are your thoughts and why did you go or didn’t go for the classified hub?