11 -34 cassette on Van Nicholas Yukon commuter

[PpPete]

Thanks Paul
Actually it was your review of the yukon I read a lifetime ago that got me started on the path of owning a titanium bike. Do you still have yours??

He did the last time I was in touch, and there's quite a few on here and over at yacf that bought one from him.
<< Avatar is mine @ PBP

Incidentally, another way of addressing the search for lower gears whithout pushing too far against the boundaries of mech capacity is to use the cranks of a road triple - preferably an older one that has 130/74 BCD. Use the 16T FD capacity however you want ( I run 44/28) on the middle and inner positions of the cranks and a bashring in place of the outer. Pic below of this on another Ti bike (not my Yukon)
Any reasonably modern medium cage RD will then cope with a 11-32 cassette.

 

[Paul_Smith SRCC]

Thanks Paul
Actually it was your review of the yukon I read a lifetime ago that got me started on the path of owning a titanium bike.
Do you still have yours??

That's how I knew that 9 speed MTB rear mech' 10 speed road bike STI mix and match worked, as it was on a Van Nicholas Yukon build for a customer. If you concluded with a 32t with a 6700 GS rear mech' then often you can get away with pushing the mech' past it's listed capacities. The GS had a largest sprocket recommendation of 30t and and overall capacity of 40t, the latter being the difference between the chainrings 50- 30 = 20 added to the total difference between the sprockets 32-11=21, Total capacity is therefore 20+21=41t.

Yes I still have mine and still love it, in reality I was instrumental in the design so I should do really! Van Nicholas didn't have a bike like that in their range (note they were still 'Airborne' bikes back then), but they offered a custom service back then so I would design each as a custom one off; I sold so many they introduced it! The reason they didn't have a similar bike is they had just started to import into the UK, this bike was and still is very UK specific, it's far less popular in other countries, yet in the UK it's their best selling bike!

 

[BianchiVirgin]

Shimano MTB cassette up to 46T is available in 11 speed. 40 and 42 also available. I use 42. 46 is "only" recommended for single speeds as there is a chain/ derailleur issue (and that uses the long cage derailleur), apparently.

 

[Paul_Smith SRCC]

Shimano MTB cassette up to 46T is available in 11 speed. 40 and 42 also available. I use 42. 46 is "only" recommended for single speeds as there is a chain/ derailleur issue (and that uses the long cage derailleur), apparently.

Sram Force 1 offer a similar 10-42 cassette to be used with their single chain ring "available in (110 BCD) 38, 40, 42, 44, 46, 48, 50, (130 BCD) 52 and 54". Using a generic 27" gear ratio formula you can achieve very similar to the popular Shimano compact double 34-50t ring with 11-13-15-17-19-21-23-25-27-30-34 sprockets.

For sure you can't match high and low gears exactly but no doubt many would be able to find a chain ring that would offer a set of suitable ratios. For those who would prefer not to run a double set up it would be a viable consideration.

It will be interesting to see how popular the single chain ring set up become. I was chatting to one of the Aqua Blue team riders in store the other day and I asked him how he was getting on racing on 1 x 11, he didn't have anything negative to say about them; it worked well enough to do his job. That said a Pro will normally ride whatever he is contracted to use as a long as it's competitive performance wise and as such allows them to be competitive; then they are happy.

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