50/42 is about the same as 38/32. 50/10 is higher than 53/11. If he is complaining about non optimal cadence being an issue I could understand it but it sounds like he is complaining about range which is just simply not accurate.

Whilst I stood on the side of a steep section of road in deepest Yorkshire, lucky enough to be over there to see the race I couldn’t help but notice the Aqua Blue guys struggling. Not because they didn’t have the gears, as you say 50x42 should get you up anything, but with the change in grades every gear change was such a huge jump that the rider faultered.

I love 1x, I use it on every bike. I’ve climbed mountains on it no problem. But if I have to change pace fast the jumps are just too great. There is no subtlety, no feathering of gears, just clunk up and down.
Find the perfect gear for the grade and you’re golden. Miss it and you’re cooked.

I was thinking of starting a similar thread now that some of the details of the Aqua Blue collapse are starting to come out. It certainly seems as though the bikes were the number one issue that precipitated the collapse.

There was an interview with Rick Delaney, the team owner, on The Cycling Podcast at the end of last week where he gives a lengthy account of his side of the story. Whilst he seems like a bit of a difficult character, you can feel the frustration in his voice as he recounts some of the difficulties he experienced.

As a brief overview, he blames the unreliability of the bikes, lack of mechanical support from 3T and non-delivery of a 2x model that they were promised as the main reasons for their failing relationship with 3T. They were locked into a 3 year contract with them, coming under pressure from riders about the situation and tried to force through the merger with Veranda-Willems Crelan purely as a way of getting out of their contract obligations with 3T; when these fell apart he saw that there was no other option but to fold.

He doesn't stop there though, he takes aim at the UCI, ASO, RCS and a host of others describing the administration of the sport as "rotten to the core". If you're interested in the internal workings of a pro-team then it's a really interesting listen.

It seems ridiculous to think that one bad bike can bring down a whole team, but that literally seems to be the case when combined with some volatile management!

Well someone Must have make the division to with 3T ?

How did they evaulate the bikes before maling sich a bold move ?

Or was it financially based ?

The buck must stop somewhere.

No invitations to Grand Tours or Classics hardly helps.

The hidden collaspe may also hint to cashflow problems and running out of money.

Sounds a bit too easy to pile the blame on all the bikes.

In the interview they discuss the financial issues of the team as well as their negotiations with race organisers and sure, it seems as though there were difficulties there too. He mentioned having to personally bankroll entry fees into races and didn't see the point in continuing that when neither the staff nor the riders had confidence in the equipment that they were using.

As I mentioned, from the interview Rick Delaney seems like a very difficult and volatile character and you very much get the impression that you're only getting one side of the story. No doubt the (mis)management of the team lead to the rapid and drastic collapse but as he would have you believe, the fundamental issue behind the whole thing was the bikes that they were given.

1x didn’t stop Warbasse from winning the US Pro road race or stage of Tour de Swiss.

Delaney issued a press release that Aqua Blue was merging with Sniper Cycling, then walked it back when Sniper denied it. It was then announced the team was folding days before it was to race the Tour of Britain, which they pulled out of. The news came out via Twitter, which is how riders and staff (who are now hosed) also found out.

I’m not advocating one way or another for 1x in this scenario but not sure how much his comments are worth.

Everything you're writing seems to indicate the fundamental issue was bad management, except your conclusion. :)

I think they were still on Ridley’s when Warbasse won.

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Alex Arman

Strava

Again, this underscore my inability to understand why pros—who need the results—are the lab rats for recreationally riding world.

Well shit. They forgot to put brakes on the things. No wonder they're having problems with hilly races.

Well if you, like Sky, can find a friendly media magnate to fund your team to the tune of $20M per year (or whatever it is) no questions asked - that provides you the leverage to pick your equipment sponsors per your own criteria.

If you're cobbling together a team from a collection of 2nd-tier sponsors and putting your entry fees on your own credit card, you are your sponsor's bitch. And the sponsor makes money from the recreationally riding world.

Jelly Belly gone. UHC gone. BMC gone. Silber Pro Cycling gone. Aqua Blue Sport gone. I'm not even sure I got all of them there.

It's really really hard keeping a pro bike racing team together. If you want to put together a team and only allow ST-approved equipment then please do. The sport needs you.

And yet Sky still started out with Pinarellos, which at the time were heavy and unaero. Took several years for them to provide a good bike but the money obviously made up for it.



One Pro in the UK also folding. Although the management will be fine as they're going to switch to being a womens team as it's cheaper.

Didn't know UHC and One Pro have also gone.

UCI need to take a good look at cycling finances.

http://inrng.com/2018/08/aqua-blues/

if you think the dogmas that Sky started racing on way back in 2012 were a bad bike then you've got another thing coming.

They may not have been 'aero' but neither were many of their competitors back then. Besides, They make a good bike that just works, has good geometry and handling, and as a pro team, have good support from your sponsors.

Unlike what slowtwitch will have you think it's the legs that win the races, not the bikes. if the 3T were 2X I'm pretty sure it would have been fine.

They were un-aero, like everyone in those days, but also quite heavy. IIRC, Orbea and Pinarello were the heaviest framesets in the ProTour at the time. Sky would struggle to get their bigger riders on weight-limit bikes (wasn't it like 1200g for the frame alone?) while competitors were easily meeting the weight limit.

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ZONE3 - We Last Longer

This.

How does somebody get to be a pro cyclist without understanding gear ratios? This Blythe guy shows that fast does not fix stupid.

Mechanical support from 3T, I can't speak to, and maybe that's a big part of their issue, but that has nothing to do with a 1x drivetrain or with this bike in particular. For what it's worth, I've had the bike since its release with no issues, as have two of my friends. I have run 46T in front and 10-42 in back, which is essentially equivalent to 52-36 and 11-28, which is what I run on a 2x bike. I finally have the 9-32, which I'll run with a 40 up front -- similar range.

I feel like we've had this conversation before.

Silber is not dead yet. Still racing and looking for a sponsor for 2019.

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***

First of all, as trail quotes and then completely fails to acknowledge (and as such I've highlighted above) I said "as he [Rick Delaney] would have you believe, the fundamental issue behind the whole thing was the bikes"; I'm not personally making any sweeping conclusions here!

Secondly, have either of you listened to Delaney's interview? I've put a link below, the Aqua Blue Sport section starts at around 20 mins in. Delaney's problems with 3T were much broader than being stuck with a 1x drivetrain.

https://audioboom.com/...vuelta-a-espana-2018

No, but I will. Thanks for the link. But that ignorance -- what that guy is saying about gearing -- is going to be hard to overcome. News flash. The "10 cassette" with a 50T front is a bigger big gear than Rob Gray could even manage to brag about pushing on his Dimond. Which is to say, I don't even think they make a ring that big?

I fell like chain drops could be fixed by running a chain guide. Obviously that hurts aero, but....

Besides chain drops, I think the biggest issue with 1x would be the jumps between gearing. Sure 46 w/ 10-42 high and low maybe the same as 52/36 with 11-28. But your missing a bunch of gradual steps between. It would suck racing 150 miles with mountains and having 15-20 rpm jumps between gears.

I did just now. And I have sympathy for the guy. It's hard to listen to because he's basically melting down. As I noted above, it's brutal putting together a pro cycling team without a rock-solid title sponsor who has your back. But is he really the victim of everyone? 3T, ASO, UCI, Sniper. Or did he just foolishly enter into a 3-year contract without knowing what he was getting in to? Does Aqua Blue Sport really deserve Giro and Tour entries? There were 4 pro conti teams in each. Has Aqua really established itself to be in the upper echelon of pro conti? It really doesn't appear that it has. So the conclusion is that the ASO and UCI are liars because they said "positive things" about his team earlier?

Then when asked about mechanical problems he tells the interviewer to "go look at the social media of my mechanics." That's insulting. If you're going to make a claim about the mechanical issues with your supplier, do so transparently and professionally. Don't glibly wave at social media. And if the mechanics were undermining the sponsor during the season, that's dumb too. If those problems were really going on you document and track them. Document every problem with pictures and details. Be specific. And every conversation with 3T. So you can make a strong technical case to the 3T, the media, etc. And provide value to the public about the what happens to the Strada and Force 1X when raced really hard. Don't just have riders and mechanics throw insults up on social media, half of which is pulled. Also don't announce team mergers unless you know what's really going on.

This guy just seems in over his head, and flailing. Everyone's out to get him. Maybe some of it legit. I'm sure 3T has a side to this story. Only they're not using social media and podcasts to tell it. Which is probably the right thing at the moment.

This guy seems like he'd be a passionate leader. But it seems like he needs a cold-hearted, bureaucratic business operations guy as his wingman.

Blaming the bike? Yeah, no. Maybe a small part, but... no.

Pro cycling is FUBAR.

That said, 1x is still a bad idea for road and TT bikes. Why would one want to go back to the giant gear gaps of decades ago?
The marginal aero gains aren't worth much and the simplicity argument .. meh.

1x is great for gravel, CX and MTB where dropped front chains are more of an issue.

I definitely would ride a Strada Due, but no way would I want the original.

I liked your points about the mechanics whining on social media and remember seeing some of that. A silly one was something about a mechanic or team rep whining about switching out chainrings so often for optimal gearing.

Do you know if they ended up running clinchers full time like they planned? Not having to fart around with tubulars seems like a fantastic trade for occasionally swapping a chainring on the outside of the spider. Half the derailleurs, the hydro brakes should basically be set-and-forget, no tubulars, but the occasional chainring swap? A few different wheels around should take care of swapping cassettes. Sounds like you would have some bored mechanics.

I thought drivetrain loss on an 11t was pretty silly. Much less running a freaking 10t or 9t cog.

For sure with a tail wind a breakaway would need the 10t. Running that vs running a 12t on another bike, yeah, that's watts and KJ's wasted. Just conjecture here, but a thought to be had I guess.

IMHO, they should have had the provision for an electronic FD that gets removed for flatter stages where a long break or sprint finish is inevitable. Then you can toss it and the other crank back on for hilly or mountain stages and have your 2x back.

It takes no time at all to swap a crank out.

They were having to swap chain-rings and chains almost daily during stage races. Maybe you wouldn't mind doing that on your personal bike (I would), but as a mechanic taking care of the bikes (and spares) for a full team, yeah I can understand complaining about that.

50-10 is roughly equivalent to 55-11, so not nearly as extreme as you're implying. Plenty of TT'ers run 56-58T on the front.

Sounds like job security to me. The mechanics should be applauding the new design rather than bemoaning it.

1x (or "single-ring", as we called it decades ago) is nothing more than market differentiation. It will disappear again in a few years. Limiting bicycle gearing to 50% the number of gears of everyone else, especially road bikes being used for mountainous races, or "all-road" bikes being used in mountainous terrain, has never been a winning strategy. That's why 11 speed supplanted 10, 10 supplanted 9, and so on.

SRAM decided a nice marketing tool would be to get a second-division pro team to ride the stuff, and I'm sure they offered up a better sponsorship package than anyone else. It likely saved the team thousands of dollars that they could then use for another rider's salary. The risk the team was taking was whether the stuff would work. In retrospect, it didn't. Which should not be a surprise. Bad form to badmouth the stuff after you signed on to test it, and got paid for that testing.

Obviously, even if the overall gear range worked, you'd have riders used to bikes with 22 gears now with access to half that. So there's an adjustment period for the athletes, many of whose contracts pre-date the team decision to experiment with 1x. As to running a chainguard to prevent drops, that would nullify the entire point of the sponsorship, it would be a tacit admission the narrow-wide rings don't always work. Then of course there's the labor of changing chainrings, cassettes, and chains (chain length is critical for 1x) for nearly every race. Pro team mechanics are not generally underworked as it is.

I hope this brings the era of "1x" to an end again, sooner than later.

That's a 5 minute job (max) on their setup if the chain is already sized correctly.

Hello nealhe and all,


I can't speak to the whole megillah but that's Rick Delaney's quote there and it came after stage 6 of the Tour de Suisse this year. One of the Aqua Blue riders, Mark Christian, who was in the break for a long while that day, dropped his chain with ~31k to go. Since it's a 1x and since there's no front D, he had to dismount to put the chain back on. In doing so he lost connection with the break. On that day the break held and the race was won by one of Christian's former break-away companions. Christian was pissed, he noted in social media that he had great legs and could have won. yeah, okay, maybe - but he dismounting to reinstall chain makes it less likely.

With all that in mind, I think Delaney's quote was more about the 1x situation - and then it's up to you to decide if that speak to the "bike" or the "gearing". They were riding SRAM X-Sync which has a tooth pattern (is it a classic narrow-wide?) that's supposed to keep the chain from dropping.

Ian

PS. I was watching this stage live and had a big back-n-forth with some roadie buddies of mine afterwords. It really stuck in my head so I thought I'd respond.....that, and I've been eager to find a chance to reply to you in some bold and green (hope there's no trademark infringement :))

---

Ian Murray
http://www.TriathlonTrainingSeries.com
I like the pursuit of mastery
Twitter - @TriCoachIan

Most pro events have 8-rider teams, I leave it to you to do the math. You also now need to track and carry multiple pre-cut chains for every bike, for every gear setup you may want to use. Certainly not impossible, but a lot of extra work for mechanics who are generally the last to bed and the first to rise at any event. Their counterparts working for teams with conventional drivetrains can leave the 11x28's and chains on for 98% of the races they do. Only have to get weird for unique races (compact cranks and/or 32t cassettes for super steep climbs like Zoncalon, different setup for "pave" races, etc.).

vjohn wrote:

...Limiting bicycle gearing to 50% the number of gears of everyone else...you'd have riders used to bikes with 22 gears now with access to half that.

Cmon now, this is just not true. Take out the redundant gear combos and you are of course still limited, but more than 50%. Here is a map of 53/39 and 11/28:
https://www.bikerumor.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Shimano-Synchro-Shift_over-the-air-firmware-update-Ultegra-6800-Dura-Ace-9000_map.jpg (if the pic didn't embed)


There are plenty of close enough redundant ratios in the big and little rings that won't be missed:

• 53/28 & 39/21
• 53/23 & 37/17
• 53/21 & 39/15
• 53/15 & 39/11

...and a few more if you allow a little more cadence range. So, instead of 50% as many gears (11 of 22), a 1X would be over 60% (11 of 18) or more.

Strangely 1x is doing just fine for mountainous bikes in mountainous races. :)

It's not going anywhere. It's staying in mountainous. It's staying in CX. It's staying in gravel and adventure. It's great on TT bikes. It's great on a lot of road bikes. It may not be great for a pro road team.

I think your math is quite a bit off there.

Nonetheless I can see why a pro rider really wants to cover their bases with max number of gears. For the rest of us, are you really telling me you can’t ride a bike up and down some hills with 11 different gearing options?? 11!! It’s like saying I can’t play golf without the full 14 clubs allowed—sure the pro may need it but for the rest of us we can get away with far less and live to tell about it.

The ratios are redundant. But not necessarily their use. If you're trying to stay attached to Nairo Quintana up Ventoux @400W you're not going to be shifting the big ring to find those intermediate gears. TTers have the luxury of synchronized/sequential electronic shifting. Climbers generally don't. That's when a tighter cassette could be useful. I think we've all been in those situations where you're right on the edge of cracking on a climb trying to find that sweet spot of cadence/torque that can keep you attached to the next tree. I could see that being an argument...but Aqua/Blythe haven't really made that argument explicitly.

So much wrong here...I just. In a world where 1x13 already exists, you're forecasting the staying power of 2x? I've added this post to my calendar for September 4, 2022. Hell, by September 2020, at minimum, I'll have Shimano 1x12 Di2 with something like a 46T cassette in front and a 10-36 in the rear. Or a 42 in front with a 9-32 in the rear. We are basically there, or if not quite there today, we are just one or two speeds short, depending on how truly tight your cadence distribution function is in the 2x world, and how much a slightly different function will actually impact your performance.

This is a better argument, maybe the best argument for a pro tour rider, but I don't buy it. You'd have to convince me that at critical moments these guys require very specific cadences within an exceptionally tight range, such that the red below is required (the 2x) vs. the evenly spaced black lines from the Rotor group.

If anything, I see the opposite. I see jerky riding, high stochastics, etc. when these guys are climbing. I see out of the saddle then sitting. And then there are flat sections of road when the switchback levels out or even declines slightly -- sure, not on Ventoux, but we know those climbs where you need the big ring, and it's just such a chore to get there knowing you'll have to drop back down so soon.

I doesn't sound like anyone understood the gearing options available to them. At most these guys would need two setups:

42/44 with 9-32T (by 3T) (shorter chain)
46/48 with 10-42T (by SRAM) (longer chain)

The 9-32T, shorter chain setup would work on all but the most intense of climbs -- why were they switching up every day? The mere idea that they were running a 50T at any point shows how ignorant they actually are/were.

My reply would be exactly what Kiley just wrote. 2-3 setups. There's not enough size difference between a 44 and 48 to absolutely require a chain length change. Seems like a 46 or 48 with either of the 3T cassettes or a 10 x 42 should cover it all.

I'm pretty sure I have not had a single TT this year where I have not used my 58/11 gear. I would guess that it's probably around my 5th most used gear ratio - my guess is the order is like this: 13, 12, 14, 15, 11.

This is all just horses for courses. I could easily use a 1x on my commute as there are no significant hills, but I run my endurance & TT bikes with 2x as they get used on hilly terrain. The only thing that I don't particularly like, even on my 2x commuter with a big cassette, are the jumps between ratios. I don't do much off-roading, but do you feel the jumps in ratio less in XC?

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29 years and counting

It is still more work though. a 53/39 or 52/36 with a 11-28 will cover you for almost everything bar a severe mountain where you might want a 12-30 or 32.

even with just 2 setups you'd still need to swap back and forth on flats/mountain days. thats still extra work for the hardest working people in a pro team, the mechanics. A typical Pro Team at a grand tour will have 3 mechanics, doing up 8 bikes- which is about 3 bikes each to wash/clean/service after every race day. not to mention the spare wheels (about 10 sets) and spare bikes (another 8 bikes) that's still alot of extra work necessary.

You need a 60T so you can avoid those inefficient cogs.

Or 62T. Choices in that size are limited, though! And I do run into problems when the organizers think it's fun to throw a steep hill or mountain onto the course. Then I either need a MTB RD with a huge cassette or a FD, which probably won't clear anything larger than a 58T anyway?

I am thinking about a 62T/12-42T setup for world's. Those large cogs are heavy, though. There doesn't seem to be a perfect setup.

MTM wrote:

I am thinking about a 62T/12-42T setup for world's. Those large cogs are heavy, though. There doesn't seem to be a perfect setup.

http://www.fibre-lyte.co.uk/fl/fl_cycles_carbon_chainring_2011.html


You would think SRAM (as the big advocates of no front mech) would do a Red cassette in 1x friendly to get the weight under 200g.
Hope isn't too bad but they had to go make their own freehub https://www.hopetech.com/product/11spd-cassette/

How much I love the small ring for a slow round after a hard crit in the big ring!

… and the freehub fits Pro 4 and Pro 2 EVO hubs. So only an option for disc brakes I would guess.

I haven't had good luck avoiding chain drops with the Fibre-Lyte rings. So would need a chain guide, and then we're back to clearance issues with big rings (have an AeroCoach Affix on the way to check). Much better luck with w/n rings and am looking into that.

I would be all over a Red cassette with something like 11-36 or 11-42 (with road spacing, not liking 11-13-15 jumps*). That's where you could really save some significant weight - 100-200g instead of ~50g for the smaller cassette. I have bought an IRD 11-42 cassette that I might shave some weight off by changing the smaller cogs to Shimano ones (also to get better shifting), but the bulk of the weight is of course in the big cog cluster.

Slapping a Hope 10T cassette on wouldn't help much with the friction aspect ;) Thanks for the link, though, didn't know they actually made cassettes.

*My feeling is you need smaller spacing at higher speeds. I guess this goes back to higher speed = more power difference with e.g. 10% speed difference.

Didn't know we were headed to dinner, because he's bringing a pretty big plate on that cassette.


Otherwise, I personally went 1x on the CX bike. I use it for gravel also. The speed differential in mtb, gravel, and CX is smaller than road. When applying real power in road you can go as slow as 6mph and fast as 40mph while giving it the beans.

CX? What, maybe 6mph to low to mid 20's mph? Gravel a little quicker downhill, maybe 30. I can't where I live, curves downhill slow it. Road? I've done mountain rides going only 5 to 6mph going up and easily pedaling a 50-11 at 35mph. That's a difference of 30mph over your gears versus only 14 to 25mph difference in other bike disciplines. In the flat, guys can sprint over 35mph. What are you going to do if you've got both a sprint finish on a flat 30km after some climb that has a 15% grade for a 1/4 mile on it?

That's why.

In a race with 9 riders a gear change means changing 18 chainrings. Race bikes plus the bikes on the follow cars. To me that is kind of a pain in the ass.

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Kevin

http://kevinmetcalfe.dreamhosters.com
My Strava

5 minutes times 18 for a 9 rider team (including spare bikes on the follow cars). That sounds like 1.5 hours. That sounds like a lot of time.

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Kevin

http://kevinmetcalfe.dreamhosters.com
My Strava

Go to the Sheldon Brown gearing calculator Choose the option "MPH @ x" rpm. (I choose 90 rpm). Create a 1x setup. I choose a 50t ring and a SRAM XX1 10x42 cassette. Look at the size of the jumps both in speed and % difference. Then do the same for a 36x52 w/ a 11x28 cassette. In the 1x setup the jump between the top two gears (14 to 12) is 6 mph or 20 percent at 90 rpm.

I run the 36x52, 11x28 for most of my riding. I don't need to look down to tell when I made the shift from my 36x17 to the 15 when I'm cruising around. The difference is much bigger than the other shifts and it's obvious to me. That change is only 13.3%. It is big enough though that I will always choose a cassette that avoids that jump for racing if I can, whether it means an 11x26 or a SRAM 11x28 (that has the 16).

I never raced on the pro tour, but I've been racing bikes for over 30 years. No fucking way would I ever road race on a 1x. It's just stupid. Crits or flat road races, sure go ahead, but real road racing? No way. Having an extra bike just for flat races doesn't seem like much of a simplification to me. I can race my bike in a flat crit or up Pikes Peak or Mauna Kea by throwing on a different cassette. That is simplification.

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Kevin

http://kevinmetcalfe.dreamhosters.com
My Strava

My point was more....(1) you don’t lose 50% of your gears; and (2) what consequences flow from less than ideal gearing...you pedal a hill a little slower? Get dropped in a group ride? Lose a “race”? Life moves on...quickly...for a pro it may be different but for the rest of us, this is a hobby. I’m not going hungry if I ride :30 slower because my gearing wasn’t perfect. And I’ll wake up the next day and be just fine.

Don't you run Di2? For $80, you don't have to guess. Get a D-Fly, put it in your system, and you have the data. How are you defining "most used"? Time? Distance? Incidence?

Even though you're super human, I'd be surprised if your rank order went like that by any of those measures. The rough numbers just don't make sense to me, even at your speed and power to weight. But I will eat my words if shown data otherwise

I think you should differentiate between the 11 speed paradigm and the shift to 13 speed. Same question for you as MTM: do you run Di2? Do you have $80? Can you share your data? This is all knowable. This whole dick measuring contest of how big of gears you run and how much time you spend there and how frequently you run out of gears looks like just that -- it's self reporting on your own dick with gut instinct as your ruler. We can actually look the numbers and maybe cyclenuntz can design a spreadsheet to make sense of it with actual statistics.

Your analysis holds cadence exactly equal, which isn't reality. You may notice the difference between 13 and 15, but does it impact your performance? How tight is your cadence distribution around the mean (or median, I guess)?

All that said, I fall exactly where you do in the 2x world. 52-36 and 11-28 allows for just about everything short of climbing Pikes Peak, etc. which is an extreme outlier. In my opinion that should be the gearing choice for the vast majority riders in the 3.8 to 5.0 W/kg range, assuming average/normal cadence bands and average/normal terrain (not pancake flat). I think everyone below 3.8 should be on a compact.

11 speeds isn't the end game here; 13 speeds is the end. That is where 2x goes away entirely for almost everyone, including pro tour riders. This PDF says it all to me.

I have a D-Fly. Haven't analysed the files, though. Wasn't there a site where you could upload the files and easily see a split of the gears used? I would define most used by time.

The average speed for my last three TT's have been 50.9, 52.5, and 53.8 kph. My average cadence is right around 90 rpm. Rear wheel roll-out around 2090mm. The "average" gear would be somewhere between 12T and 13T. I would be surprised if I didn't use the cogs from 11-15 the most.

13 speeds is remarkable, but what does rotor do to fit 13 cogs in a rear wheel hub? Wafer thin cogs? Hugely offset hub? Something else?

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Advanced Aero TopTube Storage for Road, Gravel, & Tri...ZeroSlip & Direct-mount, made in the USA.
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I listened to this last night, and holy hell is this embarrassing for everyone involved. It sounds like a classic business disagreement over a contractual relationship that one party sought to exit for reasons that really did not have all that much to do with the equipment. And all this was unfortunately aired out in the press. Delaney sounds like a big fucking baby. Maybe Vroomen and 3T didn't hold up their end of the bargain, it's hard to tell, but Vroomen's response is much less emotional

^^^This. Also, MTB already has several levels/options of 12-speed, vs primarily 11-speed for road. Every added cog makes a difference.

For every 100g of additional weight, how much time do you think you are losing due to that additional weight over 40K? Again, basically knowable.

Di2stats.com

The cogs on the Rotor group have the same spacing as 12 speed and use a 12 speed chain. I'm not sure exactly how the Rotor freehub and cassette compatibility work, but I know how the XDR works because I installed that driver body and the 9-32 cassette yesterday on my TT bike. These cassettes typically have a 2 piece construction, where one part sits on the freehub body and the other twists clockwise to lock in. The ethirteen cassette for mountain biking (9-46), which is what I run on my XC bike now that I'm slow, works the exact same way in terms of how it installs. It's kind of hard to describe, so here's a picture. If you didn't use that 1.7mm spacer, you could easily fit 12 speeds there.

10-15 sec/kg for the worlds course this year, so 1-1.5 sec per 100g. Another matter is that the heavier the cassette (especially if it has big cogs) the more likely you are to get chain slap on the upper chain span as the cassette continues to turn when you stop pedalling. I believe this makes you more likely to drop the chain on a 1x setup.

I don't need light wide-range cassettes on 95% of the TT courses I ride - the last TT I rode with a 11-25 Ultegra cassette. For unknown reasons they like to throw in mountains on worlds TT courses these years, so there you have the last 5%.

Thanks. Might try and throw in a couple of files tonight.

You would think either SRAM or Shimano would have someone who is business savvy enough to understand that cornering the market on a freehub body for the 1x world is a way to sell a lot of wheels and an opportunity to own additional market share in drivetrains more broadly. I think I have bought something like six XD driver bodies as I have slowly moved every bike over to the standard that allows me to run proper gearing on 1x setups. And then I've bought the 10-42 from SRAM, even as I run Di2 on every bike.

The slowness of these companies to adapt and offer new products are missed opportunities both in the product space and in business. Shimano just now released a competing freehub body and their wheels absolutely suck. I don't think they have much chance of catching up to SRAM now.

While I agree that there were some issues of education / understanding with the team (i.e. running a 50t chainring in all but rare extreme cases with a 10t cog), the larger issue is that there isn't enough standardization in terms of cassette options for a given small cog size. If you can stick to one small cog size, that eliminates the need for more frequent chainring or crank swaps.

It seems like this was the root of their mechanics' woes - and I think that SRAM needs to address this if they want even more 1x acceptance in road. If you want small cog jumps, you need a standard cassette body and large chainring (11-25, 11-28, 11-32, 11-36 with a 50-53t ring). If you need lower gears than that, you have to go to their 10-42... with a larger bottom AND top end... so you need a different chainring size (note, I think SRAM has one low-end/heavy 11-42). And then when you do the 9-32, it's a different chainring again. In order to make this thing easy, they need to add options like 11-42, 10-36, 10-32, 10-28, 9-28, 9-36, etc. Now that Shimano made a new cassette body for their 12-speed XTR that supports a 10-tooth small cog, I think that the industry should just agree that 10 is THE new small cog, so we can build chainrings and cranks around that in the future.

I also think that part of the reason for their struggles is that the riders were likely trying to have the smallest gear jumps from cog-to-cog for every single stage. With 2x, there are probably days where riders don't use several of the gear combinations at all, but that's a "who cares" situation. The gears are there if they need them (i.e. bad day), but if they don't use them it's no big deal and they still enjoy small gear jumps in the cassette compared to 1x.

I don't have a dog in the fight - that's just my assessment of the situation.

I agree with everything you said -- we are saying a lot of the same things. But my dog in this fight is a better drivetrain experience.

You make a very compelling argument for 1x on the road, and in terms of range a 9-32 covers all the bases. No argument here.

However, given what we know about friction in the small gears, how does that make sense on a TT bike? Surely, in the world of treated chains and every-watt-counts, throwing a bunch of those watts away in the 9T cog seems stupid.

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ZONE3 - We Last Longer

That was absolutely fantastic. Thank you Greg.

I'm not here to advocate 1x for road bikes, pro tours, etc. I was just miffed why paid mechanics were whining so much publicly about doing their job. Maybe it's the Midwest in me, but whining about your job seems like a great way not to have one. I know there's a lot to do for a pro mechanic, but I feel that going down to one derailleur, having mostly maintenance free brakes and ditching tubulars had to have given them back a bit of time. Having less to do than your peers and then whining about additional 3-5 minute tasks (which certainly add up when given many bikes) seemed off when their baseline should have been lower to begin with.

I love working on cars. I tend to keep cars a long time because I like to work on them and use my saved money towards bikes. If I had been given an electric car a few years back, I would have saved quite a bit of time this summer not flushing the cooling system, replacing spark plugs, changing oil, dropping the transmission pan, scrubbing the intake, replacing the water pump and replacing some other parts in the cooling system. I still would have had to replace the front brakes and wheel bearings, but I would not have used the hours of time saved to whine about accelerated tire wear or having to plug the car in every couple days. Or whatever it is fancy people with electric cars have to do differently.

I absolutely agree with your statement that a bit better standardization of cassettes would help. Settling on an 11, 10 or 9 as the smallest cassette ring should help with the 'top end' confusion which would affect chainring selection.

tessar wrote:

However, given what we know about friction in the small gears, how does that make sense on a TT bike? Surely, in the world of treated chains and every-watt-counts, throwing a bunch of those watts away in the 9T cog seems stupid.

I think this depends a lot on the course and how powerful you are as a rider. I'm not going 50k/hour unless the road is sloping pretty significantly downhill, but I'm not MTM or even rappstar, who has a cadence in the high 70s and an FT close to 5 W/kg. Most of us aren't

Consider Mont Tremblant, a triathlon bike course that I would say requires more 52-11 than almost any other on account of long, straight downhills that are, with the exception of the Duplessis descent in sections, as non technical as they come. My data looks like this for a training ride on that course -- note that the cassette is wrong, and I was actually running 11-28. I can't see how to correct it, but basically you have to translate

11-25: 11-12-13-14-15-16-17-19-21-23-25
11-28: 11-12-13-14-15-17-19-21-23-25-28

16 minutes in the 52-11 over 5 hours (38 mph avg). Compare that to time in 52-15 and 52-17 (listed as 52-16 in the data), the top two gears by time and the exact middle of the cassette. I spent over a quarter of the ride there, or about 75 minutes.

I don't really know how much we know about friction in 9T and 10T. How much is it, and what does it mean in that 16 minutes or so, which is the maximum I could expect to spend as a share of 5 hours due to the nature of that course

In Cambridge Maryland over 56 or 112 miles, I wouldn't see the 9T or 10T at all in a 1x setup, and I wouldn't see the 52-11 in a 2x setup. The little ring would also be useless there. So for a big race like that on a flat course I would probably go with like 46T and an 11-25 or something. I don't know, I'd have to think about it in terms of balancing aero of the drivetrain, chainline, and gaps that you'd be especially sensitive to in a very steady TT on a flat course. Pretty sure the chainline would be just fine, because I'd average about 24 mph with little variance over the day, which is the speed I averaged for 52-17 on Tremblant's course. And 46/15 = 52/17.

All this stuff matters, because every watt counts, I just see a lot of people pontificating about this shit when the data just doesn't support what is said.

It is. I'm a nobody and could knock out those 18 bike's chainring swaps in under an hour though if I didn't have to dig through the parts bin for everything each time. It 'seems' like if you have two bikes, maybe the 'spare' bike could have one size chainring and the main bike another? Just strange how much focus was given on chainrings when it's SUCH a simple job for a SRAM ring mounted on the outside of the spider and front derailleur. I don't remember what cranks they were running, so it might even be quicker if they had enough extra cranks and could just pull those instead.

I'm not here to advocate for 1x on road bikes, pro tours, etc. It seems clear that that management and generally toxicity among the team probably had more to do with the team folding than technical problems. Them trying to blame their parts/bikes has created a divisive attitude in this thread. I think most of us would agree that 1x isn't ideal for all of their events, but it didn't make them impossible. Wrenching should not have been wildly different. If I was given a set of parameters to operate within (here's your cassettes, here's your chainrings, no front derailleurs, here's your paycheck), I would figure out what worked best within the parameters. Maybe smaller chainrings and cassette teeth are just too different for riders and team managers and that makes the mechanic's job even more difficult. Greg Kopecky makes an excellent point about the small tooth on the cassette needing to be standardized to help with the chainring shuffling to keep top end availability.

I think you had mentioned somewhere else that you like the SRAM 11-28. Personally, the SRAM 11-28 is my favorite cassette ever. I run it 2x on the road and 1x on the tri bike unless I have a race where 50 x 28 won't cut it. I am a little slower than you and need that 15 and 16 back there. Then it's back to 2x. One event per year where I need 11-32 or 11-34 and 2x. I can't imagine using a 10 x 42 on the road. Even the 11 speed 11-40 on my gravel bike can occasionally leave a little jumpiness between the 11, 13 and 15. 10, 12, 14 would be even (slightly) worse.

You are completely missing my point. Running out of gears is never something that I am concerned with. I just set a national age group record for 40km on a fixed gear 54x14 which isn't particularly large. I AM concered about the jumps between gears. I can't count the number of times I've been in races back in the day with 7, 8, 9, and 10 speed groups where I was in a small group where I found myself in the situation where the 15 was slightly too big and the 17 was slightly too small. And that gap is much smaller than the gaps in the 1x setup I mentioned earlier. Why would I want to switch to a group that gives me back those big jumps between gears now that I've finally mostly left them behind with 11 speed 2x groups?

Maybe 13 speed 1x will solve all of our problems, but one small company selling that group is a long way from being mainstream which means for now 1x is not viable for road racing. And road racing is the context of this discussion Re: Aqua Blue.

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Kevin

http://kevinmetcalfe.dreamhosters.com
My Strava

They need to do both bikes because if you need a bike change you want a bike with appropriate gears for that particular stage. Given that we are talking about professional bike racing where money, sponsorship, etc. is on the line having suboptimal gearing to make the mechanics job easier is not an option.

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Kevin

http://kevinmetcalfe.dreamhosters.com
My Strava

That would be ideal, yes.

The job of a pro team mechanic is not an easy one. It is not uncommon for the mechanics to finish their work at 10 or 11 in the evening after a stage. They don't get to even start until the riders finish which is what, 5pm or so for most pro stage races? Add in the time to get the bikes to the team hotel they probably start at about 6pm. Unless of course there is a transfer after the stage... Then it's later. First step is to wash ALL of the bikes, even the ones on the cars. Though the bulk of the time is spent on the bikes that were actually ridden that day, the bikes on the cars have to be at least inspected to be sure that nothing happened to them. Then they need to inspect for issues, wear, damage if there was a crash, etc. The mechanics also wash the team cars and buses. Though I'm not sure if that is an every day thing or as needed, but it is required as sponsorship and presentation are important at that level.

Basically, they have a lot to do and every new task you throw at them makes it hard to get it all done in a timely fashion.

I found this article that outlines the daily tasks of a pro mechanic.

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Kevin

http://kevinmetcalfe.dreamhosters.com
My Strava

I agree. 1x11 is close, but just a little gappy for me. 1x12 is closer still. 1x13 with well-thought-out steps in a 360-390% range? And no more faffing with trim? You can have my FD, I'll never miss it.

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"They're made of latex, not nitroglycerin"

I saw a 10-36 12spd cassette on the road the other month. In fact, the entire drivetrain was prototype: shifters, derailleur(s), cranks, chainring.

The only words I received from the rider was “No comment”.

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Alex Arman

Strava

A little of this, a little of that. Same cogs/chain/spacing as 12 speed. Rotor 13 speed freehub has the same spline shapes/orientation as traditional Shimano/SRAM 11 speed, but it's 3mm wider. The offset is obvious adjusted accordingly. Biggest cog is cantilevered over the inside, 10T cog sits outside and is secured with a special lock ring.

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"They're made of latex, not nitroglycerin"

Cyclenutnz had gear use distribution calculations in his models a decade ago. As you say - it's not hard to know these things.

However, I wouldn't get quite so excited about 13s yet. The cassette is wider than 11 or 12s so it may not be that viable on the road until we get boosted in a couple more years when Trek/SBC need to find a way to sell road bikes again.

Just threw in 4 of my last TT's on Di2stats.com - see attached. I think these are decently representative of usual TT's I do in Denmark. For some seriously hilly ones like worlds the stats will of course be different. I think my gut feeling about which gears I am in was not off the mark.

Tough job. Tubular gluing between races has to be the worst. 4-5 layers per tire. They probably have to go through a huge % of tires after a Grand Tour. Just day after day of gluing to get 4-5 layers of glue for dozens of wheelsets.

Again, my question is not against 1x, it's about the 9T cassette.

I don't have Di2 so I can't get exact statistics, but I raced IM Frankfurt, on a particularly shit day body wise (20w under power target) on a 52/36 and 11-28. I shifted into the small chainring twice or three times per lap, and in all those cases I would be just as well-served with a 32T cog in the bag and the big chainring. I did, however, use the 11T for extended periods of time, since there's nearly 25km of each lap are on a mild downwards trajectory, with a gentle backwind this year.

So if anything, I would be looking at a 50 or 52t front, with an 11-32, or 11-36 cassette to cover almost all my racing needs - with a 12-speed setup the gaps would be good enough for me. The problem is training, where sometimes I need a wider range (no big mountains around here, but the hills can be steep), and that pesky winter HIM I keep signing up for that starts with 1000m of elevation gain in the first 30km of the bike course.

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ZONE3 - We Last Longer