# Anyone running 1x on their commuter?



## big_slacker (Feb 16, 2004)

My bike is currently a 2x11 CX gearing 46-36 front, 11-32 rear). I love the gearing for my commute which has a few hills. I have 1x10 on my MTB and the simplicity is great!

I getting ready to switch from drop bars to Jones H bars and that will require a new shifter. Since I'm switching shifters anyway I'm thinking why not simplify and go 1x? 

So has anyone done it? I should be able to get close to the same range running 44 front and 11-42 rear with a SRAM MTB rear D. Wondering if I'm missing anything or if it's that simple?


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## watts888 (Oct 2, 2012)

Can you? of course. I was thinking about doing it to free up some tire clearance, but I don't think it'll save much hassle as far as shifting goes. Is shifting an FD that difficult on road? Do you forget and cross chain that much with a 2x? Also, I'd think that with the increased speed of commuting, the ability to have closer geared cassette is more valuable.


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## volksbike (Nov 4, 2015)

big_slacker said:


> I love the gearing for my commute which has a few hills.


Hmmm- Still seems by going to 1x, you will be missing 50% of gear range combinations you had with 2x ??? I just did this on my Fat Bike over the weekend and love the simplicity, but I definitely noticed less low end granny gears going from a 2x 32-22 with an 11-42 10s cassette to a 1x 30T NW. I think it would be even more noticeable while commuting on the road ?

-VB


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## bedwards1000 (May 31, 2011)

big_slacker said:


> I love the gearing for my commute which has a few hills.


It ain't broke...

I don't think I'd ever advocate going 1x on anything, but that's me. We have roads with 16%+ grades around here and I use one end of the gearing to the other on every bike I own. Even on lesser grades, some days you are just tired.


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## big_slacker (Feb 16, 2004)

Yeah, it would lose some gears. I was just thinking it would be easier for maintenance/tuning, less weight, etc.. But after I posted this I looked at COST of doing this which is also a big minus. Seems that everything 11 speed other than shifters is pretty damn expensive. $500 seems like a lot for an experiment which like you guys mention might not even work that well with less gear combos to work with.


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## bedwards1000 (May 31, 2011)

Starting at 10 speed, road and MTB shifters only work with road and MTB derailleurs respectively. I think, please fact check me on this but beware of just buying a new shifter and expecting it to work.


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## Harold (Dec 23, 2003)

I used to have a 1x10 on my commuter. It worked well for my commute in Indianapolis. I used the whole range and never really felt like I needed more.

But with that said, the bike didn't have enough range to get out of the city where there are real hills, so its usefulness was limited. I am training for a century ride this summer, and went 2x10. I'm using an 11-36 mtb cassette and a compact double crankset, so I've got a pretty wide range of gears. It's way more range than I use in the city, but it's a more useful range for real climbs as well as touring with a load.


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## Harold (Dec 23, 2003)

bedwards1000 said:


> Starting at 10 speed, road and MTB shifters only work with road and MTB derailleurs respectively. I think, please fact check me on this but beware of just buying a new shifter and expecting it to work.


for Shimano, yes.

SRAM is a little different. 10spd SRAM is interchangeable. 11spd SRAM is more complicated.


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## formula4speed (Mar 25, 2013)

I don't know what everyone's routes are like, and obviously what works for me won't work for everyone else, but I feel like huge gear ranges are overrated.

I mostly commute on a beltdrive singlespeed, because it saves me maintenance. I know it's not a lot of work, but I don't especially enjoy it.

I recently got a cargo bike, which is over 50 pounds unloaded and I have an 8 speed IGH on that and that feels like plenty even on the hills.

So basically I like simple, and I think you'd be fine. Though the conversion sounds pretty spendy, and I'm not sure how durable 11 speed casettes are.


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## Kleebs (Mar 18, 2014)

I dropped my front derailleur from my commuter and haven't missed it at all. Part of that is because my commute is mega flat. I went the other way from you and converted from flat bar to drop bar by picking up a used 10sp bar end shifter and 105 rear derailleur. I honestly don't even need 10 speeds but it was what was most available near me. I routinely use about 3 gears.

EDIT:
Are you putting the H-Bar on a CX bike? I am having a hard time imagining how that will ride. Please post up some pics when you do it. After reading your post again, i noticed that you are considering 1x because of the bar switch. Even if you don't do 1x, you will still need new shifters and derailleurs because of the 11sp. You are going to be spending a lot of money for compatible components no matter what you do so might as well do what you want.


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## Joules (Oct 12, 2005)

big_slacker said:


> $500 seems like a lot for an experiment which like you guys mention might not even work that well with less gear combos to work with.


First thing; look around a bit more on price; 
M8000 at Jenson: cassette $65, derailleur $63, shifter $40, chain (105) $20 (I've also had no issues running a Shimano 10s chain on an otherwise 11s drivetrain). So total for required parts $188. A raceface n/w ring runs about $40, but for a commuter the ring you have would probably be fine, at least to see if the gearing works for you. You don't need a new crank and with shimano you don't need a new freehub.

But... it's not going to be less maintenance. I kind of doubt you'd actually save weight either, at least not enough to notice. If you want low maintenance, I'd go Sram 2x9. The low leverage ratio made that setup really resistant to cable friction; I used to go almost a year without adjusting anything even with all the crud that builds up with interrupted housings.

FWIW I run a 1x9 39x12/25 on my commuter all parts came from what I already had in a discarded parts box. 16% is what I'd call a moderate hill around here, we have climbs in the mid 20s but they're short (I have to stand on them anyway, unless on my mtb with a 30/42 low gear and even then I'm almost standing to get my weight far forward enough to keep from wheelieing). I spin out going down them, but I spin out my 50/11 on my roadie too, and frankly I don't care about the difference between 41mph and 42. Since you're changing from drops to Jones bars, I'm guessing you don't really care about top speed either.


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## TenSpeed (Feb 14, 2012)

bedwards1000 said:


> *Starting at 10 speed*, road and MTB shifters only work with road and MTB derailleurs respectively. I think, please fact check me on this but beware of just buying a new shifter and expecting it to work.


Yes?


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## CommuterBoy (Oct 4, 2007)

My MTB is 1x... Love it on trails, not on the commute. I'm running a 34 up front, which is big in mtb land, but I'd want much bigger for the commute if I commuted on it regularly. I had my cross bike set up for the commute for a long time with no front d, but I left the double chain rings on there. Left it in the big ring 90% of the time, and kicked it down into the little ring when I had a crazy headwind or a crazy hill to climb. Can't beat that for simplicity.


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## big_slacker (Feb 16, 2004)

Joules said:


> First thing; look around a bit more on price;
> M8000 at Jenson: cassette $65, derailleur $63, shifter $40, chain (105) $20 (I've also had no issues running a Shimano 10s chain on an otherwise 11s drivetrain). So total for required parts $188. A raceface n/w ring runs about $40, but for a commuter the ring you have would probably be fine, at least to see if the gearing works for you. You don't need a new crank and with shimano you don't need a new freehub.
> 
> But... it's not going to be less maintenance. I kind of doubt you'd actually save weight either, at least not enough to notice. If you want low maintenance, I'd go Sram 2x9. The low leverage ratio made that setup really resistant to cable friction; I used to go almost a year without adjusting anything even with all the crud that builds up with interrupted housings.
> ...


Haha, thanks! I did not at all consider switching to Shimano since everything on there currently is SRAM. 

I had priced out stuff of equiv weight and a wolf tooth up front. I also need brake levers.

Are you thinking maintenance won't be less just because the rear D will need an adjust from time to time? Because that's still less work than tuning front AND rear which always seems to work differently on the stand vs riding, then back to the stand to adjust, etc. Two D=PITA.

I don't think sticking a spacer on my 11 speed hub and hacking a 2x9 is gonna be easier than 1x11 but I could be wrong?


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## Shayne (Jan 14, 2004)

1x10 for about 8 years on one of the bikes I commute on.

If your commute really has few hills why bother with the 11-42?? Just single ring it with the cassette you have.


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## jeffscott (May 10, 2006)

I ride 3 up front get by with 46 and 11to36 on the rear...not flat riding.

But snow ice wind rain etc...has me using 22 36 on occasions.

One bike is enough for me.


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## big_slacker (Feb 16, 2004)

Shayne said:


> 1x10 for about 8 years on one of the bikes I commute on.
> 
> If your commute really has few hills why bother with the 11-42?? Just single ring it with the cassette you have.


A few hills, not few hills, haha! Ride there is easy, only 150 ft of climbing. Ride back is 500 ft of climbing, almost all of it a single extended climb. Or I can take the long way back which ends in a shorter but much steeper hill.

FWIW I generally climb the longer hill standing 2-3 gears higher than my lower gear so I could do some figuring and get a ring that's close as you mention. As stated above top speed isn't sure a big thing, the Jones bars are an attempt to help my old man back feel better so I can commute more.


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## Joules (Oct 12, 2005)

big_slacker said:


> Haha, thanks! I did not at all consider switching to Shimano since everything on there currently is SRAM.
> 
> I had priced out stuff of equiv weight and a wolf tooth up front. I also need brake levers.
> 
> ...


My experience has been that adjusting a front derailleur is a once-a-decade type thing; once you get it working it pretty much stays working forever. The 11s bikes I own or have worked on require [relatively] frequent adjustment, get noisy if I don't lube the chain every 2 rides or so, and wear out parts faster than 10, which wears faster than 9; or I should say performance degrades faster. 11s is also MUCH more sensitive to chainline - with 9 you could run pretty much any chainline you wanted and it'd work, with 11 if it's not just right the chain will fall off the big cog if you backpedal.

If you have a road 11s hub, to run either mtb 11s setup you are going to need either a spacer or a new freehub (assuming your hub will take a Sram freehub), to run 9 or 10s you would also need a spacer - the same one in either case. 
I make a distinction between setup and maintenance; the spacer on a freehub, sure it might take a few minutes to figure out (although probably not even a few minutes), but once you do you'll never have to mess with it again.


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## GRAVELBIKE (Oct 7, 2006)

My commuter/gravel rig runs 1x11. I have a 40T oval aB ring up front and an 11-40T cassette in back. Yes, I spin out the 40/11 on paved descents, but other than that, it's fine.


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## BrianMc (Jan 5, 2010)

My errand bike is 1 x 10 (42 x 11-34). I have spun out once on a descent with the wind behind me in 42 x 11 with a load on board. I have wished for a lower gear loaded uphill into the wind once. I was fitter at that time. Since the front was 52/42 this was the cheap option. I converted the 52 into a chain guard.


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## traffic002 (Dec 16, 2008)

I run a 1x9 on my Poprad (CX) bike with 28mm road tires. 39 front and 11-34 rear. Bar end index shifter.

It's good for what I use it for (full fendered commute bike). I have one big hill to climb on the way home (about 500' elevation).

I wish I had one more low end gear. And I pretty much comfortably spin out at 27mph. I can probably hold 30 but I'm doing like 110rpm cadence. So for anything more than a slight downgrade, I just coast.

This is fine for commuting, it gets a little more challenging on group road rides.

So I just picked up a Salsa LaCruz (frame fit is better for me) that has a compact double and 11-25 cassette.

I just picked up a standard double crankset. Will pick up a 42t narrow-wide chainring and swap the 11-25 with a 11-36 10sp cassette to run 1x10. I should get 1 more top end gear and one more bottom end gear than on my 1x9.

BTW, I do find shifting up from small ring to big ring on the road annoying. It's not a particularly quick shift and I have to hold the damn lever there for a bit as the chain ramps and takes hold. Like the simplicity of using one lever to do all my shifting even if the cogs are spaced farther apart. I don't have to do the stupid change front, change two on the rear. Three separate movements to change 1 gear ratio.


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## mtbxplorer (Dec 25, 2009)

Yes, but not on purpose. The FD stopped working after a fender explosion, but I have not really missed it.


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## chrisgardner73 (Oct 12, 2008)

Yes. I'm running SRAM Rival 10-speed shifter(s), Rival cranks with a 40T Race Face N/W ring, X7 T2 rear derailleur, and a 11-32 cassette on my Surly Cross Check, and it works great!


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## newfangled (Sep 13, 2010)

volksbike said:


> ...you will be missing 50% of gear range combinations you had with 2x


There is a bunch of overlap in 3x and 2x systems, so you're really only losing a fraction of the range. There are probably better graphs, but with a quick googling this is all I found:









The light blue vs the grey is the difference in range between commerical 2x and 1x setups. And you lose something like a gear at the lowend, and a gear-and-a-bit at the top end. (but anyone doing their own setup can move that around by picking a different ring to keep more of the high or low range)

My 1x story is all about chainline. On my geared mtb I've got a 38t in the middle position of the crank, and it works pretty well.

But I happened to have a spare 42t sitting around, and I thought I'd give it a try to get a little more speed. It just barely doesn't fit in the middle position though, so I had to move it to the outside of the crank. And that led to _terrible_ crosschaining when on the big cogs. It was really unpleasant compared to the 38t.

So that's something to watch for.

(I might actually trying spacing my bb over to get better chainline, just to see if I can. But 38t>42t isn't even the equivalent of 1 gear, so it's not a big deal)


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## GRAVELBIKE (Oct 7, 2006)

Here's a comparison of SRAM's WiFLi (2x11) and 1x(11):









I switched from a WiFLi double to 1x a year ago, and I'm really happy with the 1x setup.


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## jeffscott (May 10, 2006)

newfangled said:


> The light blue vs the grey is the difference in range between commerical 2x and 1x setups. And you lose something like a gear at the lowend, and a gear-and-a-bit at the top end. (but anyone doing their own setup can move that around by picking a different ring to keep more of the high or low range)


if you ever run an long consistent run then the overlap is very useful picking just the right gear to maintain RPM.....a very roadie thing.....head wind makes it really useful.

If you are in big chain ring...and the gear is a little tall go down to smaller chain ring, and then up two on the rear and you have the next closest ratio down.


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## bedwards1000 (May 31, 2011)

newfangled said:


> There is a bunch of overlap in 3x and 2x systems, so you're really only losing a fraction of the range. There are probably better graphs, but with a quick googling this is all I found:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


That's a nice chart and all. But both of my commercial 2x and 3x MTBs have larger big chainrings giving a wider range and more gearing options than whoever was trying to push the 1x drivetrain in that chart. And don't even talk to me about a cross bike with one ring if you are going to use it on the road.


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## bedwards1000 (May 31, 2011)

jeffscott said:


> if you ever run an long consistent run then the overlap is very useful picking just the right gear to maintain RPM.....a very roadie thing.....head wind makes it really useful.
> 
> If you are in big chain ring...and the gear is a little tall go down to smaller chain ring, and then up two on the rear and you have the next closest ratio down.


And if you want gearing with a closer spacing use the small ring, good for making small adjustments into a headwind. If you want wider spacing, use the big ring, good for rolling varied terrain.

I'm all for biking innovation. I have hydraulic disks on my CX bike, Di2, 26er & 29er... invention is good. But I'm going into this 1X fad kicking and screaming.


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## bigeyedfish (May 30, 2013)

I am working my way down to only owning one bike. At the moment, it is single speed, and if I didn't ever pull the Burley trailer, I would just leave it as is. Hills suck with a trailer, so once my cross bike sells, I'll put gears on. It will definitely be 1x though. I just don't have any need for a front derailleur, and it's more parts to buy and maintain.


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## newfangled (Sep 13, 2010)

^ yeah, I really come at this as a singlespeeder.

I realized last year that having 3 singlespeed/fixed bikes was silly, because they were all too similar. So I changed my #3 bike over to 1x, and now it gets used a lot more because it's genuinely different from the others.

But 38t works well with this setup:


__
https://flic.kr/p/yY8D9N

But a little bit less well with this one (although it's still not terrible)


__
https://flic.kr/p/AqVM2h

And for me it's not really an issue of cadence or range. My biggest worry is just that I'll wear out the 11t and 13t cogs on the cassette. 
(which are replaceable, but at basically the cost of a new cassette)
((the flipside is that normally the middle cogs wear out, but with 1x I genuinely am all over the place, so maybe it will last as long anyway?))


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## jeffscott (May 10, 2006)

bedwards1000 said:


> And if you want gearing with a closer spacing use the small ring, good for making small adjustments into a headwind. If you want wider spacing, use the big ring, good for rolling varied terrain.
> 
> I'm all for biking innovation. I have hydraulic disks on my CX bike, Di2, 26er & 29er... invention is good. But I'm going into this 1X fad kicking and screaming.


yup


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## jeffscott (May 10, 2006)

newfangled said:


> And for me it's not really an issue of cadence or range. My biggest worry is just that I'll wear out the 11t and 13t cogs on the cassette.
> (which are replaceable, but at basically the cost of a new cassette)
> ((the flipside is that normally the middle cogs wear out, but with 1x I genuinely am all over the place, so maybe it will last as long anyway?))


Flick of the left wrist and the wear is all spread out....


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## newfangled (Sep 13, 2010)

jeffscott said:


> Flick of the left wrist and the wear is all spread out....


Except for a lot of riders the front derailleur means spending the vast majority of their time in the same, single, middle cog. And it's maybe a 16 or 18t and will wear less slowly than an 11 would, but it's seeing a lot more usage too.


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## Shayne (Jan 14, 2004)

bedwards1000 said:


> But I'm going into this 1X fad kicking and screaming.


I don't mind 1x at all and it has been around forever...cyclocross and crit racing...but the new twist of making the gearing super low/slow baffles me.


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## jeffscott (May 10, 2006)

newfangled said:


> Except for a lot of riders the front derailleur means spending the vast majority of their time in the same, single, middle cog. And it's maybe a 16 or 18t and will wear less slowly than an 11 would, but it's seeing a lot more usage too.


That is an issue with the riders knowledge and understanding.....not a limitation of the set-up with two or more rings...This is also the reason lots of people including bike salesmen....don't understand, why and how to use multiple chainrings.

The discussion ends at "lots of ovelap"

Still stands a flick of the wrist and your good.


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## jeffscott (May 10, 2006)

Shayne said:


> I don't mind 1x at all and it has been around forever...cyclocross and crit racing...but the new twist of making the gearing super low/slow baffles me.


Yup

WE have lots of downhills, logging roads etc. where you can motor along a 50+ kph. using 46 11, and cover a good 10 k valley crossing way fast.


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## bedwards1000 (May 31, 2011)

Shayne said:


> I don't mind 1x at all and it has been around forever...cyclocross and crit racing...but the new twist of making the gearing super low/slow baffles me.


I don't mind 1x when it's used appropriately. But stop shoving it down our throats. 1x road bikes? No thanks.


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## Asmodeus2112 (Jan 4, 2008)

Late to the party, but I moved to 1x11 GX 42x 10-42 on my commuter and love it. Best thing I've done in a while. I ride loaded up on some moderate hills and it's perfect. FD's are gone on 15 of the 18 bikes in my garage.


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