Just ordered a 9-45 but I think I’ll keep the stock 40t in front and see if I somehow spinout at top gear. Thanks for the suggestion - I was hemming and hawing at the mullet upgrade so this a great alternative without having to swap out rear derailleur and then the hassle with selling it, getting a new chain, yada yada.
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Pulled the trigger on mullet, same derailleur + 1295 no-color-choice cassette, Eagle chain, and 46t red/force direct mount chainring for my Rival crank. Thanks for the inspiration, same top gear as Tarmac and a little lower gear 46x52 vs Tarmac’s 33x36. Wanted the color bling but not the extra $ 
- next bike if I fall in love with the gearing!!!
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Checking in to see how you all are liking your mullet set-ups?
Currently debating between SRAM GX AXS or Rival XPLR on my Crux. Where I ride is fairly hilly so use the whole cassette (11-42).
Any thoughts or feedback?
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busy at work/home, so I haven’t gone mullet yet. Still 40T and 10-44, and not missing the front derailleur in flatland. Did some outside low-cadence work this week, and could have used the 46T chainring thats waiting to get installed. At the same time I’ll put the 10-52 pie plate on the back, that will give me the same top gear as my Tarmac, with a little lower gear for gravel/singletrack climbs.
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I took it to Bentonville recently and used the 52 quite often. Here in flatter NTX I use the 46-10 quite often. My take so far is that it’s a great set and forget option. With a bigger front ring you’ve got flat power and climbing power for hilly areas too.
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I just built up my gravel bike with a 44 front 10-50 garbaruk on the back (seriously love that cassette for the price).
I’m a fairly big unit with an ftp around 310 and think going up to a 46 will be the best set up for racing. Find myself down the end of the cassette on flats or slight downhills. I dont think there is any downside over a 2x set up though given the simplicity of the 1x.
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Unless you’re just really worried about the perfect cadence, which I’m not.
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I’ve been sharing an Eagle AXS RD between my XC bike and gravel bike (and run the xplr on the gravel bike when I need both bikes operational). My Xmas present is another Eagle AXS RD so that I can just run both bikes with Eagle. The smaller gear jumps on the big cogs and slight weight advantage of xplr is nice, but I like the eagle for any course with steep sections (especially on 100+ mile races). I’ll likely just put the new eagle RD on the gravel bike for everything and let xplr RD/cassette gather dust or sell it. I also do 95%+ of my road riding on my gravel bike and it does just fine on the road with 1x and xplr or eagle. There is so little downside to eagle vs. xplr, I question why every 1x gravel bike doesn’t just come with eagle. I guess SRAM just felt the need to have something to market to the gravel crowd. In the big gravel races I did last year, the folks at the pointy end running SRAM 1x seemed to be on Eagle more than xplr.
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Do you guys need super long chains for some of these setups?
Nope, took several links out when I installed mine.
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Checking back in with the mullet club. Anyone come from XPLR and if so what was the difference?
Those of you who have been riding the mullet (partying in the back) for a while… do you still like it?
Yesterday I finally installed the mullet and replaced the XPLR
but I need to wax the chain before riding.
For winter training I’ve been happy with 40T chainring and 10-44 cassette, but a couple times have run out of gears in flatland (low cadence work). Did some low cadence work yesterday, just barely enough gearing to keep it in the 60rpm range around 90% FTP (had to sit up to slow down a few times). And I needed a little more gearing at both ends, so its now 46T and 10-52.
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Those who’ve gone from XPLR to mullet: I assume you need to change RD, cassette, and add a longer chain? Are you still running a flattop chain, and are the Eagle cassettes XDR? Sorry for the basic questions - I’m very tempted by 44 up front and 10-52 in the back.
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Here is what I bought during the October/November sales:
- Eagle rear derailleur
- Eagle 10-52 cassette
- Eagle chain
I installed the Eagle cassette, took off the XPLR cassette which is on a XDR freehub:
and had to add a 1.85mm spacer per the chart above. More info here: XD, XDR, and Splined Cassettes | SRAM
Then I went to LBS for help installing, because the manager bought my Checkpoint’s Rival derailleur and Bontrager stock (Paradigm Comp 25) ALU wheels (he now has 2 wheelsets for cross racing: muddy and dry).
Its a pretty straightforward install. He did the chain measurement, then eye-balled the other stuff and when I pulled out the plastic gauge it was perfect 
I could have done it but would have taken twice as long.
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Thank you for posting the chart. How did you get your hands on the 1.85mm spacer?
Just about to take the mullet plunge to help with a gravel race with 3200m of climbing in 125k. While I have done it with xplr (40t chainring) I think the 10-52 will help make it a more pleasant experience. Just need to play with either a 40t or 44t chain ring to see what’s best.
At World’s this year the steepness of the climbs was mental for me even with xplr and the 40t chainring. Again many of the cool kids were running mullets which I can see to have the biggest 1x flexibility if you don’t know the course.
@Jolyzara @RecoveryRide
I alternate between my XPLR and GX group sets. Hub is XD across 3 rear wheels. The rims and tyres are different.
For general riding and training, I use the XPLR set up. For racing I use the GX setup.
I do play around a lot with different size chain rings, from 38-46.
I have defined chains for all combos, flattop solely for XPLR, Eagle chains for GX.
Changing between XPLR and GX means a complete rear change - that’s RD, cassette and chain. Front chainring is compatible with flattop and eagle chains.
I use the 10-44 XPLR cassette, and in the GX disguise am using the e-Thirteen 9-50 cassette. From MTB use, I feel the 52t cog is too easy for me hence the 9-50 option.
Using the 9t allows for a 4t lower chainring gearing to be used, i.e. a 42/9 is similar to a 46/10 for top gear but way easier when 42/50 is used over 46/50.
Changing between groupers is not a bore. Setting up B-screw is easy when you you know what/how to do. Cassette on and off is quick. At most, the change happens a week out for a race and that week is used to ride in race setup. After the race, depending on when next race is, back to XPLR.
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I’ll add my 2cents in addition to TexanDad…
Mine came with either the Kickr or a Shimano cassette. Start typing “1.85mm spacer” on Amazon and you’ll get a lot of results at about $7.
Or visit your local bike shop.
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Also provided gratis with certain shimano 11 speed cassettes (for using the 11-34 cassette that overhangs the freehub a bit on a longer 11speed road hg freehub).
I don’t get why companies still make different XD and XD-R freehubs. Seems like standardizing on XD-R would cover all bases, but perhaps there is a hub geometry optimization issue.
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