1 x 10 drivetrain experiences please.

[Gillstay]

Hi, I am thinking of fitting a 1 x 10 drivetrain to a flat barred alloy touring bike but before I spend I wondered if anyone has good experiences of these and the pro's and con's.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Jenkins]

I converted my 2015 Giant Rapid 1 to a 1 x 10 drivetrain by removing the front derailleur & the inner chainring on the double and putting a 44T ring where the outer 50T was, but retaining the 12-28 cassette due to living in a relatively flat area. I spent some time going over gear calculators making a note of the most used gears in the old configuration and matching up what I would get with different sized chainring/cassette combinations and effectively ended up losing the 50/12 and some of the very spinny combinations on the old 36T inner ring./

So far so good as I've not spun out yet and it's coped with some nasty headwinds and the short sharp inclines and longer slow drags we have in Suffolk. No problems with dropped chains either - the chainring being a Raptor from Superstar Components firstly fitted to a FSA crank & now a SRAM one and still using the original Tiagra rear deraileur.

Edited to add - This is what it looks like now....

 

[DRHysted]

The only con I’ve come across is faster wear on the chain.

 

[T4tomo]

My gravel bike (drop bar) is a one x 10.
38T x 11-34. It gets used for gravel obvs, winter road bike and light touring. It's quite low geared deliberately, but I can still get close to 30 mph before you spin out on the flat / downhill.
I quite like the simplicity of one shifter.

I just have a normal 105 RD and a small. Chain catcher at the front.

 

[Gillstay]

I converted my 2015 Giant Rapid 1 to a 1 x 10 drivetrain by removing the front derailleur & the inner chainring on the double and putting a 44T ring where the outer 50T was, but retaining the 12-28 cassette due to living in a relatively flat area. I spent some time going over gear calculators making a note of the most used gears in the old configuration and matching up what I would get with different sized chainring/cassette combinations and effectively ended up losing the 50/12 and some of the very spinny combinations on the old 36T inner ring./

So far so good as I've not spun out yet and it's coped with some nasty headwinds and the short sharp inclines and longer slow drags we have in Suffolk. No problems with dropped chains either - the chainring being a Raptor from Superstar Components firstly fitted to a FSA crank & now a SRAM one and still using the original Tiagra rear deraileur.

Edited to add - This is what it looks like now....
View attachment 634285

That looks like a good all rounder.

 

[Gillstay]

My gravel bike (drop bar) is a one x 10.
38T x 11-34. It gets used for gravel obvs, winter road bike and light touring. It's quite low geared deliberately, but I can still get close to 30 mph before you spin out on the flat / downhill.
I quite like the simplicity of one shifter.

I just have a normal 105 RD and a small. Chain catcher at the front.

Yes, the simplicity of one shifter appeals to me as well. Plus I don't tend to go fast. If its down hill I get up to speed and then rest.

 

[ColinJ]

I have 1 x 11 on one bike. I like it!

It has a 42 tooth ring and an 11-42 cassette. For touring, I would put a smaller ring on; maybe a 34 or a 36.

 

[SydZ]

Only downside I've found on my 1x11 is that I 'only' have 11 gears as opposed to 22 on my 2x11 so there's the odd occasion I can't find perfect gear for me at that time.

 

[ColinJ]

Only downside I've found on my 1x11 is that I 'only' have 11 gears as opposed to 22 on my 2x11 so there's the odd occasion I can't find perfect gear for me at that time.

That was my worry before I got the bike. I have, however, been doing a lot of riding on singlespeed over the past few years - on that singlespeed bike I am nearly always in the 'wrong' gear (sometimes by A LOT!) and it turned out that the gearing steps on the 1 x 11 didn't really bother me compared to that.

 

[Kajjal]

The main consideration is to get the range of gears you need for your riding. When this first appeared in mountain biking people were trying to go up long steeper climbs struggling. On road the lack of faster gears can be an issue.

 

[Jenkins]

Only downside I've found on my 1x11 is that I 'only' have 11 gears as opposed to 22 on my 2x11 so there's the odd occasion I can't find perfect gear for me at that time.

That was what almost put me off changing to a 1 x set up. However after a bit of thinking I realised I actually used less than half the 20 gears avaialble so, as noted above, I made a note of which ones were used and compared them to what I would get with various 1 x combinations.

This is the calculator I used: https://www.berkshiresports.org/bicycle-gear-ratio-comparison-calculator/
It allows a side by side comparison so put your current set up to the left and play with combinations on the right to see what matches.

 

[figbat]

I recently changed my hardtail MTB from 3x10 to 1x10; I fitted a wider range cassette (11-46T) with a long cage derailleur but kept the rear shifter I had and simply removed the front derailleur and shifter. I kept the crankset and replaced the three rings with one oval 36T narrow-wide. I noticed the bigger gaps between gears but soon got used to it.

My home-brew gravel bike is also 1x10, a mash-up of Shimano parts and a cheap crankset. Again I went wider at the rear (11-42T) which meant I had to fit a drop link to the derailleur for it to work, but work it does.

 

[Sittingduck]

I was slightly sceptical when I got my 1x11 setup but the 42 x 11-42 is fine. I have very recently installed a 11-34 on seperate wheels for fair weather road use as it is comparatively flat here. The top end has yet to prove a problem as you would need to be doing 30+ to spin out and that scenario is more likely to involve downhill or more ballsy sprinting - neither of which are on my short term agenda.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

My only concerns with the 1X setup is the ridiculous prices of those dinner plates cassettes. Often up to 5-6 times the cost of a bog standard cassette you’d use with 2x or 3x.

 

[Sittingduck]

I agree with Ming but found this Tifosi (Shimano compatible) selection at Merlin for not silly money, works fine on my new wheels.

Linky here

Some of them are getting on for 100 quid elsewhere, after a long time googling... not good value