Running an eagle rd and cassette solves this in most cases. I personally find the xplr group/gearing pointless unless you are riding flat stuff. I just run a 42 or 44 ring on my checkpoint with the 10-52 cassette, whether on gravel or road.
Ideally I‘d just go 48/35 with 10-36. that‘d cover me 99% of the time with better cassette spacing than an eagle 10-52. but that‘s so individual, 1by is great if it works for you. For me it kinda doesn‘t on the road but it’s manageable for a n=1 bike
XPLR is pointless even on pancake flat stuff. Eagle with 46T front chainring and can swap the 40T if I’m climbing some gnarly stuff. Plus Eagle rear has a built-in chain holder for taking the wheel off.
I replaced my Domane with a Crux. The Crux was a better road bike and a much better gravel bike than the Domane. I am currently debating adding a Rudy or a Lauf suspension fork (I fall on sus the bike not the rider). I am worried about throwing off the geometry a bit. Anybody have any experience with this?
Since I ride 99% road (no gravel near me but bad chip seal which is honestly worse) with some rollers 1x is perfect for me. On the Crux I ride 40/44 and on my SL8 I ride 50/44. I personally didn’t see a need to go with a mullet on the Crux, but would consider it if the new XPLR supports a 50-10.
I owned a Lauf. It was a great bike, very light for the time, but I didn’t like the fork at all on road. I could feel it bob and sway, especially when out of the saddle or diving into a turn. I loved it for gravel and really debated selling it, but once I did, I found wider tires and more padded bars to be a better solution on gravel too. I know others love them though, so ymmv.
I’d seriously consider trying a redshift stem before spending $ on a suspension fork. You can dial in the firmness you like. I’ve ridden a lauf on the road, not a fan of the bounciness. The stem isn’t dampened either, but you can get it firm enough that the bounce isn’t noticeable but still takes the edge off. For heavy chip seal, a little more volume and lower pressure on the tires goes a long way. We have a ton of heavy chip seal in central TX and I seldom run a tire smaller than 32 (tubeless at ~50psi) and I’ll often just run gravel tires on the road.
It isn’t so much 1x, it is that you don’t have enough range, i. e. just a wrong choice of gearing. 46:33 = 1.39 corresponds to 34:24, so that’s a rather tough gear. 46:10 = 4.60 is a tad tougher than 50/11 = 4.55.
I went for a smaller 42-tooth chainring when I lived in Japan and did well with a 10–36 cassette. I would have gone for 10–44, but that hadn’t been released when I ordered the bike. My easiest gear, 42:36 = 1.17 corresponds to 34:29. For the Japanese alps that was a bit tough (in Z2), but it was still ok.
I spun out at 65ish km/h on the downhill, which is sufficient for me. (I don’t want to become an organ donor.) You first gotta know what climbing gears you need before you decide your chainring + cassette combo.
I recently moved from the Austrian pre-Alps to the flatlands near Berlin. I switched from a 10–36 cassette to a 10–33 cassette. I don’t think I have ever used the 33-tooth cog on the road. (I just got the 10–33 cassette, because I replaced the cassette on my trainer and I didn’t know how flat “flat” meant.)
Perhaps we have different ideas of what flat means, but I wouldn’t even know with a 10–44 cassette. My mountain bike has a 11–46 cassette and even when pulling the bike trailer full of groceries and/or kids at slow speeds, I’m in the middle of the cassette.
I was really thinking for gravel. For roads on the Crux I just ride my 47 Pathfinders and I generally have no issues. It certainly would be easier to change out a stem and send it back if I didn’t like it.
Same. I found out 10x33 is more than enough in Houston with the stock 40 chainring. I will never use the 33. OTOH, when I travel, I’m going to want more, gears, so I’m reluctant to go all the way up to a 46. I’m debating if I go 42 or 44. I might go 44 and just swap it to the 40 with 10x44 if I’m going somewhere with big gravel climbs.
Side note: didn’t realize you weren’t still in Japan. What a huge change of scenery from Japan to Berlin!
Indeed. I changed jobs twice within the last year, which cost a lot of energy. Oh, and my wife had our third (and final child). Not good for training, but it’ll set us up for the long run (including retirement).
I do miss proper mountains, though, I love climbing.
I spend a lot of time between 30–42 km/h. The only spanner in the works are the cobbles, which are common on some stretches. The cobbles killed one inner tube, I counted four holes.
Usually I would err on the side of having another climbing gear and go for a smaller chainring. But now the only other consideration is efficiency vs. having more closely spaced gears at speeds you are actually achieving on the road. My idea is to stick to my 42-tooth chainring until I need a new one and then reconsider this question.
I live in Potsdam, which is a “suburb” of Berlin. I put it in quotation marks, because it is actually a state capital in its own right. The cycling infrastructure is so-so. There are bike paths in the countryside, but often they are not contiguous. If I go the “wrong” way, I’d have to traverse the road by making a “left turn” and then get back onto the road.
Inside Potsdam, the infrastructure seems alright, although I have yet to cycle inside the city center.
The drivers are markedly more aggressive. I get honked at for no reason more than once a ride. No reason means a wide two-lane country road with ample space to overtake. I’m moving at 35+ km/h by the way.
The other thing I need to figure out are lakes and the relative lack of bridges. I planned a route that had a “bridge” in it. Only to realize that the supposed bridge was a ferry, and ferry service wouldn’t start until an hour later.
I‘m on the XPLR cassette so 46:44, that’s almost 1:1. For me it’s two things, range and gear steps. I could’ve gone with a mullet setup or with and FD but choose XPLR after not liking Ekar mechanical. If Ekar would have been electronic I would have gone this route. I think 13spd XPLR will be closer to what XPLR should‘ve been three years ago. But the industry wasn’t there yet with UDH. That’s the risk of being an early adopter with 12spd XPLR. There will always be something new that’s better.
Sorry, @Pbase’s post got mashed up with your and I erroneously assumed you were using a (mislabeled) 10–33 cassette.
If you need more than 440 % range, there are no 2x options that have the climbing gear and range you need but SRAM’s 2x gravel crank (43/30) and its 10–36 cassette. That gives you almost the same range as a mullet setup, but unlike with 1x, you cannot place the range to where you like it. In this case, you’d spend even more time in the top gear (43:10 = 4.30, equivalent to 52:12 = 4.33). You’d have a much easier bottom gear in return, though. You could go for a SRAM compact crank (46/33), but that not only shrinks your gear range a little, but also results in higher gears that are a tad too tough.
If I were you’d I’d get a 42-tooth chainring, because not having the right climbing gears is much more significant than spinning out at 60–65 km/h as opposed to 65–70 km/h. (The upper end corresponds to a cadence of 120 rpm.)
What gear range do you need and where do you need it?