I recently switched from 1x back to a double and definitely prefer it on the road and gravel, and I think I will be happy to go back to it in CX. I did not care for 1x in CX after dropping chain twice this season due to eating mud, wish I had faster shifting when cresting hills, and I seriously did not like the gross chain-line grind on the extremes of the cassette. So, with that said, I’m thinking about Marie Kondo-ing my collection of 11-32 through 11-36 tooth cassettes and wondering if my fellow CX racing bros and lady-bros think I will regret it.
Additionally, do you think the Shimano pro CX riders long for 1x? I do not but curious to hear your opinions.
I’ve got a Focus CX bike with a shimano double, 46/36 tooth chainrings, and couldn’t be happier. 11-28 cassette. I use the bike for CX and road rides/races. Flat ground mostly in Chicago.
Couldn’t be happier. Chain generally stays in the 36 100% of the time on a CX course, chain stays in the 46 100% of the time on the road. Haven’t dropped a chain in ~10 CX races yet.
An FD cage probably would have kept the chain on when eating mud through the crank. We had a super wet year and kind of fluke scenarios, but they happen when the conditions are really muddy or icy. There is a reason the Belgians all run doubles, not sure what that reason is though.
I did a CX clinic with Sven Nys and someone asked that question. His answer was the big ring was basically for max speed on the start line, and after that rarely used.
I run a 1x setup on my mostly Shimano Giant TCR CX bike - Ultegra Di2 hydro shifters, XT mtb clutched rear derailleur with Wolftooth goat link, XX1 11sp 10-42 cassette, Wolftooth 40 or 42t oval narrow wide ring, stock Giant chainguide. Works great for me, I run the shifters in an right down/left up setup because it can be hard to find the smaller Di2 paddles when it’s really cold and I have thicker gloves on. I’m mostly an enduro racer so I tend to hop barriers and ride like a mountain biker, and I’ve never lost a chain.
I’m after it for the quick and easier gear changes as I’d rather hit the FD than hit an extra three gears in the rear. I suppose I’ll give it a try and buy the $80 Wolf Tooth ring if I change my mind.
NW ring with clutched RD. Chain dropped on both occasions involving extreme mud and either side of the cassette extremes. Both times there was mud and hay and shit going into the crank ring, nothing going to prevent that.
I don’t think the pro riders long for 1x. I think they like the big ring for the initial starting sprint, and can have the little ring as an option on punchier courses. It also allows them to stay in a narrower cassette range.
For a mortal like me it’s 1x for CX all day long. I’ve raced two seasons on Force CX1 and have never dropped a chain, not sure what you’re doing wrong. Clutch rear derailleur plus single chainring is meant to mitigate drops. Run a chain catcher. Chain drops are far more common in 2x set ups. I don’t think the cross chaining in a 1x set up is anything to be concerned about SRAM seems to do a decent job of setting up a good chain line. Chain line is literally the last thing on my mind when I’m cross-eyed.
To be fair, I don’t think there’s a paved start/finish line for cross Vegas? Also, article says a 48t inner? Zoinks, that’s big enough already. For most of the big Euro races there’s a nice paved road where you can put in some substantial speed before it goes off-road. Anyway, just relaying the explaination I heard first hand from a top pro!
I’ve run a sram force 1 setup for 3 years in cyclocross now and have never dropped a chain, and the last two years have had some pretty wet and muddy races. Two of the really fast guys around here that are former age group cx national Champs run 1x setups using Shimano and wolf tooth components. It’s mainly down to preference. The people I know who run 2x setups for cx are in their little ring 99% of the time anyway. If I was going to have a bike that I’d use for gravel, cx, and some winter road rides, then I’d think about going for a 2x setup.
If you’re not obsessed with tight gear ranges and can handle some jumps in the larger cogs I think 11-32 or 11-36 with a 40-44t chainring is a deadly combo for pretty much everything besides hour long climbs. Ted King has won Kanza on 1x.
Shimano is definitely missing where a substantial part of the market is going by clinching to the front derailleur. And I for one is thinking that this will hurt them. SRAM already has affordable 1x groupsets on the mountain bike and road bike side, and the 1x offerings on the mountain bike side are already all 12 speed. Its new eTap groupsets officially support 1x and 2x, so it is up to each customer to decide — and I reckon this trend will continue with the next version of their mechanical drive trains.
Compare that to Shimano: on the mountain bike side it only features 11 gears rather than 12 — apart from its highest-end XTR groupset. It has nothing to compete against NX Eagle and GX Eagle. And when Shimano released its Ultegra RX rear derailleur, instead of adapting an XT rear derailleur for the road groupset cable pull ratio and allowing customers to use wide-range cassettes, the RX derailleur has the same (official) 34-tooth limit as its non-clutched brother. Plus, there is no 11-36 Shimano cassette. So if you want to run Shimano 1x, you have to frankenstein your groupset in one way or another.
Whereas SRAM gives you the choice and offers 1x at more price points.
Even on the road side, 1x is becoming an option for more and more riders. (If I loved my road bike’s geometry, I’d probably convert it to 1x very soon.)