Sticking with 2X. Virtually all the races here in NorCal throw a "real" hill in on the bike (1-3K at 8% or more), and I don't want to thrash my legs grinding up it in too heavy a gear.

Back when I raced mostly in the Midwest, 1X would be fine for almost every course (many of us thought about dumping our front derailleurs and that was back in the days of a 12-23 or 12-25 rear cassette). The issue was the one or two races per year where you needed the small ring.

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ECMGN Therapy Silicon Valley:
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I'm never giving up double chainrings.

A 48 1x with a 10-36 has a broader range than a 52/36 11-27. It's a pretty good solution, even for hillier terrain no?

It takes about 250w for a 175lb rider to keep 70rpm on an 8% grade using a 48/36. That’s a fairly strong biker in a 70.3. Most would be grinding in the 60s or lower, or burning matches going above ftp. To your point, someone running a 36/27 would face similar issues….though they could get a 30 or 32 rear to address this.

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ECMGN Therapy Silicon Valley:
Depression, Neurocognitive problems, Dementias (Testing and Evaluation), Trauma and PTSD, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)

A 42 to 48 front 1x with a 10-36 would be ideal for nearly everyone on nearly all courses. Sram could corner the TT bike market with their new cost-effective wireless groupset. I know there is some inefficiency in gear selection but you never have to worry about dropping the chain or being in the wrong ring, it's a far more fluid form of riding, specific to gavel and TT. For road riding I want a climbing chain ring and a descending or flat chain ring, my effort and HR level vary more.

For me there would be two major disadvantages of your ideal system. Firstly it would require regularly swapping chain rings and chains. Not a killer but far more of a time suck than just making sure my FD is adjusted properly. The bigger problem is I would be stuck with sub-optimal gear spacing which I hate for TTs. I have 1x on my cross bike and would never go back to 2x in that application but for TTs I would only ever consider 1x if I was using a 56+ tooth front ring and close spaced rear cassette for fast and flat courses.

Ultimately a 10 or 9 tooth on the back is a 'solution' for 1x because its a large jump from an 11 to a 10 or 9. On a TT bike large jumps are not an good solution nor are extreme chain lines. Ideally you want to be hitting the middle of block and that in turn means very large front rings. This creates its own problems which are best solved by 2x. I will be interested to see how Shimano address the equation when they finally launch DA. If rumours are true they will stick to an 11 smallest cog to minimize jumps on the cassette and stick with a 2x system.

I wouldn't be swapping the front chain ring, I think that would be fixed by your FTP and cadence preferences. Whether you're a tall strong person grinding 300watts or a smaller person spinning 150watts. I agree that the downside would be less tight gear selection, you would be covered for pretty much anything lumpy, but not typical UK flat TT courses. You would be using the 15,13 & 12 for most of your TT efforts, that would be the goal, along with specific training to alter your cadences a little bit more to keep the power output constant, rather than relying on shifting. Old school UK TTing was fixie based so it can be done.

i LOVE 1x, but right now i only have had it on my road bike. main reason for this, I live in a hilly area. not mountainous, but hilly. i run a 44t front and 11/34 back on road bike, and 52/36 with 11-28 on the tri bike. on the road bike where i'm just riding for fun and not worried about speed, i have the range to get up everything and don't care too much about cadence, and don't care about coasting on the downhills because i run out of gears on many descents. the 1x is simpler, looks great, i can keep a better chainline most of the time, and i love not having to worry about a front shift if i'm climbing out of the saddle and want to go up one or two gears where otherwise i'd have to sit, drop into front chainring, compensate shift at the rear, and stand back up. cresting hills is better with 1x too, don't need to worry about shifting into big ring, you can just rhythmically shift down as you get going faster. descending is probably the thing that makes me not have it on my tri bike right now. i run out of gears once i hit 30 mph. when racing, i want to be able to pedal and keep a normal cadence at those high speeds. a 44/11 isn't quite big enough for that. and if i go with a 50t chainring up front, i lose my range to get up short 10-20% or long-ish 8-12% steeps that i regularly face when out training. if i had 12sp and a 10t cog, that may give me more flexibility but as of now still on 11sp.

that being said, i'm racing IMFL later this year and really would love to get the tri bike in a 1x set up for that. i could just plug a 50 or 48t ring on there and stick with my 11-28. not sure if i will, but if i lived in a flatter area, 100% i would go 1x on the tri bike. i'm not a big guy pushing huge power, i'd probably go with a 48t front, and have two cassette options. if you size your chain to the bigger cassette, you'll never have to change the chain, you can just swap cassettes as needed. depends where i lived and trained but i'd probably have an 11-28 and 11-34 at the disposal (or similar 12sp equivalents). it also depends on your riding style, and cadence preferences.

long live 1x.

My own personal thoughts is I see the logic but in real world application it doesn’t feel like it would work for me. Sometimes on less hilly courses I’ll grind in a not so great gear cresting a short hill just to avoid using the front chain ring and still in my aero or just out for a second to finish that last poke in the eye. So if that’s your norm sure. But that’s only one area where I live and a short ride at that. If I do any of my other loops the hills get longer and steeper. They’re not mountains but I’m sure most of us are going to end up on the bull horns grinding out a low cadence in the small chainring. For that reason I really can’t see a 1x ever being a solution for me.

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I still lapped everyone on the couch!

I've been 1x for 3 years now. Road and tri. Lived and raced in hilly settings. Ill be racing St. George in a few days on 1x.

My standard gearing is 56t front and 11-28 or 11-32 on the rear. St. George I may swap a 52t on as without much flat riding I won't get as much of the chainline benefit I get from the 56t front.

1x is simple, can work with almost any drivetrain setup/level, cheaper, lighter, presumably more aero, less prone to chain drops. I think because I have literally never ridden a tri bike with 2x, I was never accustomed to tighter gearing gaps and therefore don't miss them at all. I'm not picky about my cadence.

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Benjamin Deal - Professional - Instagram - TriRig - Lodi Cyclery
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A good solution? Not really. It may have a broad range, but with a broad range 1x setup you get larger gaps between gears. IMO, both of the options you reference are bad choices. Looking at http://ritzelrechner.de/ and considering my typical/target speed and desired cadence, both options have a big gap such that I would have to either over or under gear for the bulk of any race. There’s more to gear selection than the extremes. The majority of the race is more important, IMO.

TT, I do both depending on if a race or training. Training for a good while with my hills by my house, 2x 56/42 combo with 11-30. Flattish riding or race......60t and 14-30. I put on the final riveted cogs from an 11-30 cassette as the last two slower cogs instead "just in case".

Yes, 14-30. Bastardized junior cassette. Straight chain line at target pace with larger rear cogs. I really don't get the concept of 1x systems that use tiny front rings and then small rear cogs that are less efficient.

There was a chart floating around a while back where there were some nice wattage gains to get into a larger rear cog (in one range of the chart about 1.5w per cog size change). So, if you manage to move two cogs larger diameter.....more watts saved than that $600 OSPW system bought.

My concern is mostly mechanical. Having worked in a bike shop, and seen the effects, and rapid wear from cross chaining. Also as mentioned, the efficiency (or loss of) of cog size, along with the drag of severe chain angle. I live in Kansas, and almost never get off the large front ring, and most races use 2 or 3 rear gears. I love simplicity, and have contemplated 1x for years. But the weather loves to throw me a reality check, and I find myself on the small front ring, large rear, fighting a 40 mph headwind, at 12 mph. As a MOP age grouper, I’ll keep what I got.

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Athlinks / Strava

Love it.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/1iVaY1cznC77YRap7

I've been on 1X since 2016 and have really like it. My current set-up is 52 front with a 12/30 cassette
The 12/30 is combo of two cassettes to give me the cogs I prefer. I mainly race in the Houston area which is incredibly flat but this combo has given me everything I need to do the Old Buffalo Springs/ Lubbock 70.3 course. I would say research a little on your needs by playing around with some calculator. I would recommend having 1 cog past what you think you would need..

had 1x on my tri-bike for 6-7 years now but even before that i don't recall ever using the small ring.

52 front with 11-26 rear. i think i would go 50 front if i could, but when i went 1x the smallest ring i could get for a 130 was 52.

It is rolling where i live and race, but i only race the local short duathlons (cycle up to 25M) and the odd TT and the organizers aren't going to have a course that can't be ridden by someone doing their first event on a sub-optimal bike, so there aren't any hills that are particularly challenging. My inability to set up the SRAM FD on my road bike was the root cause of my aversion to front-shifting.

Never dropped a chain either - despite not having a clutch RD.

Same here been riding 1X for at least 5 years. I've got a 54 in front and not sure what is cassette is. I live in a hilly area and my "easiest gear" is rarely used because I have more range than the 2X set up I had before. You can put a 36 in the rear and spin up any climb. What you lose with 1X is some of the mid range gear combos, so you have bigger steps between shifts. What you gain is not having to think before you shift. Google bike gear calculators and play around with different combo if you are thinking about making this change.

50x10-36 would be my ideal but it really depends how strong a cyclist you are.
My bike splits in triathlon are usually closer to the FOP, but definitely not the strongest.

50x10 is a tiny bit bigger than 54x11 I run now.
50x36 is the same gear as my granny gear: 39x28

For a weaker rider or very hilly course, maybe an 50x(10/11)-42.

I currently ride 2x but my next TT bike will be 1x.

Oddly enough, for gravel/road I've gone back to 2x.

I’ve been running 1x on my tri bike for 3 years. Raced hilly courses like IMWI and super flat at IM Cozumel. Run a 50t front and a 10-36 12 spd in back. Never missed my front derailure once I ditched it.

thanks for all the advice everyone...

a quick question to those with 1x... do you have a clutch rear derailleur or a NarrowWide chainring or both?

The only necessary thing is to have a narrow wide. Clutch gives extra security but I ran a clutch my first year and non clutch the past two years and haven't had a single drop ever.

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Benjamin Deal - Professional - Instagram - TriRig - Lodi Cyclery
Deals on Wheels - Results, schedule, videos, sponsors

4 days out from St George and you decided to go ahead to and jinx yourself???

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Matt

Pretty sure covid already tanked my race harder than a mechanical will :/

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Benjamin Deal - Professional - Instagram - TriRig - Lodi Cyclery
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X2 on no need for clutch RD as long as you have narrow wide ring. No chain drops for me in over 1000 miles on bumpy northeast roads