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The 1x Drivetrain I want & how: 14s w/ 12s chain. perfect chainline
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So, a new company named S-ride came out with a 13s cassette that fits on a 10/11s freehub body by bringing the inner cogs inward shaped to the dish of the wheel:




  • Now, if this were paired with an xdr freehub, this could go to 14s with a 12s chain
  • What I'd like to see is a crankset that allows for a direct mount chainring, and the mount area between the crank arm and the bb is ~1+cm wide, and a servo motor (inside the spindle?) moves the chainring in an out perpendicular to the bb to enable the chainline to remain more in line than even on 2x as the rear derailleur moves in and out.
  • hack a di2/AXS/We/Campy shifter to be able to move 14 shifts.
  • 9-10-11-12-13-14-15-17-20-23-26-29-32-36 pair with a 44t chainring and you've got the range of a 54x11 and 34x28 with pretty nice spacing
  • while that's gearing perfect for scaling and descending mountains, you'd obviously be able to have some amazingly tight spacing with something like a 14s 10-28/30 for flat to rolling tri's.


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Last edited by: milesthedog: Apr 14, 19 17:12
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Re: The 1x Drivetrain I want & how: 14s w/ 12s chain. perfect chainline [milesthedog] [ In reply to ]
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milesthedog wrote:
hack a di2/AXS/We/Campy shifter to be able to move 14 shifts.

This raises an interesting point I have wondered about. I guess I don’t understand the mechanics/electronics behind a RD and blip box. But, is there a reason they couldn’t shift up and down 14 times (or 30 times) if the rest of the setup allowed for such shifting? In other words, does it really require a hack? And if so, what does that involve?
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Re: The 1x Drivetrain I want & how: 14s w/ 12s chain. perfect chainline [DFW_Tri] [ In reply to ]
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The distance the RD parallelogram can reach is a limiting factor

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Re: The 1x Drivetrain I want & how: 14s w/ 12s chain. perfect chainline [DFW_Tri] [ In reply to ]
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You'd have to hack the software to get it to allow this. On the hardware side, the derailleur might not have the range of motion to move across the entire cassette and may or may not have the resolution to move accurately enough to each shift position (I doubt this would be the case but worth mentioning).

I'd personally be wary of using a cassette like that because on the innermost cog there's an increased potential for the derailleur hitting the spokes if the wheel is out of true or the wheel/frame flexes under load.
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Re: The 1x Drivetrain I want & how: 14s w/ 12s chain. perfect chainline [milesthedog] [ In reply to ]
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Wrapping a chain around a 9T cog would be a lot of drag.
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Re: The 1x Drivetrain I want & how: 14s w/ 12s chain. perfect chainline [dfroelich] [ In reply to ]
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dfroelich wrote:
Wrapping a chain around a 9T cog would be a lot of drag.

I wonder if there'll ever be a move away from 1/2" chain pitch, which has been fixed like avogadro's # while basically every other drivetrain parameter has evolved. Which would presumably allow smaller cogs.

Though I don't know what the trade-offs are. More links might mean more overall drag. But it can't be that 1/2" is like some magical optimized number?
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Re: The 1x Drivetrain I want & how: 14s w/ 12s chain. perfect chainline [milesthedog] [ In reply to ]
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milesthedog wrote:
9-10-11-12-13-14-15-17-20-23-26-29-32-36 pair with a 44t chainring and you've got the range of a 54x11 and 34x28 with pretty nice spacing
  • while that's gearing perfect for scaling and descending mountains, you'd obviously be able to have some amazingly tight spacing with something like a 14s 10-28/30 for flat to rolling tri's.
In order for a cog to be positioned over the spokes, it needs to have a big enough radius that it can actually clear the spokes and be well-supported in doing so. For instance, it's possible to mill out an 11-28 11-speed Shimano cassette so that it fits on a 10-speed freehub body, but the same can't really be done with an 11-23 cassette: milling out all of the parts of the 23-tooth cog that interfere with the spokes would basically destroy the 23-tooth cog.
This is why S-ride's drivetrain uses an enormous 52-tooth big cog. You couldn't make a 10-28 cassette spaced the same way: the wheel's drive-side spokes would sit above the 28-tooth cog!
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Re: The 1x Drivetrain I want & how: 14s w/ 12s chain. perfect chainline [dfroelich] [ In reply to ]
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dfroelich wrote:
Wrapping a chain around a 9T cog would be a lot of drag.

This get's brought up every thread about cassettes with smaller cogs, but why? How many watts do you suppose 9t cost you when you say "a lot of drag"? And how much time do you spend in your fastest cog? It's unlikely to add as much time as you think it might.
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Re: The 1x Drivetrain I want & how: 14s w/ 12s chain. perfect chainline [HTupolev] [ In reply to ]
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HTupolev wrote:
milesthedog wrote:
9-10-11-12-13-14-15-17-20-23-26-29-32-36 pair with a 44t chainring and you've got the range of a 54x11 and 34x28 with pretty nice spacing
  • while that's gearing perfect for scaling and descending mountains, you'd obviously be able to have some amazingly tight spacing with something like a 14s 10-28/30 for flat to rolling tri's.

In order for a cog to be positioned over the spokes, it needs to have a big enough radius that it can actually clear the spokes and be well-supported in doing so. For instance, it's possible to mill out an 11-28 11-speed Shimano cassette so that it fits on a 10-speed freehub body, but the same can't really be done with an 11-23 cassette: milling out all of the parts of the 23-tooth cog that interfere with the spokes would basically destroy the 23-tooth cog.
This is why S-ride's drivetrain uses an enormous 52-tooth big cog. You couldn't make a 10-28 cassette spaced the same way: the wheel's drive-side spokes would sit above the 28-tooth cog!

Well if the tri and TT community finally acknowledge that a disc is ridable in anything but a hurricane, we could use discs with wide cassettes.
Making the front cog float wold probably be enough to allow it to self align with an appropriate chain.

I never used anything more than 8 speed with a straight block and then often with only a 54 front ring.
I don't really understand this craving for extra gears for tri's
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Re: The 1x Drivetrain I want & how: 14s w/ 12s chain. perfect chainline [milesthedog] [ In reply to ]
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milesthedog wrote:
So, a new company named S-ride came out with a 13s cassette that fits on a 10/11s freehub body by bringing the inner cogs inward shaped to the dish of the wheel:




  • Now, if this were paired with an xdr freehub, this could go to 14s with a 12s chain
  • What I'd like to see is a crankset that allows for a direct mount chainring, and the mount area between the crank arm and the bb is ~1+cm wide, and a servo motor (inside the spindle?) moves the chainring in an out perpendicular to the bb to enable the chainline to remain more in line than even on 2x as the rear derailleur moves in and out.
  • hack a di2/AXS/We/Campy shifter to be able to move 14 shifts.
  • 9-10-11-12-13-14-15-17-20-23-26-29-32-36 pair with a 44t chainring and you've got the range of a 54x11 and 34x28 with pretty nice spacing
  • while that's gearing perfect for scaling and descending mountains, you'd obviously be able to have some amazingly tight spacing with something like a 14s 10-28/30 for flat to rolling tri's.


Dear lord that sounds like one step forwards and 10 steps backwards. Given the torque on the chainrings the last thing I want is the ring to be able to move even if a mechanically workable system was found. Especially because in terms of gearing what you are asking for already exists in a much better package (https://www.rohloff.de/en/products/speedhub/). Obviously there are disadvantages to hub gears but once you start needing to throw a motor in the spindle because the chain line is a hot mess hub gears are a clear winner.
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Re: The 1x Drivetrain I want & how: 14s w/ 12s chain. perfect chainline [milesthedog] [ In reply to ]
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If we're moving gears through motors along spindles then why not do it on the rear. Have all the unused gears flat against each other to one side or the other of the one used gear. That gear is in a good chain line. If, for instance, you change to an easier gear the chain is briefly clutched while the currently used gear is shunted off to lie right up to other gears to the outside. Then the next largest gear is moved off the stack to the inside and moved to the chain line. Basically you overcome the need to have space between every cog, maybe you could fit double the number of cogs that way?

Seriously though, part of the advantage on a 1x is simplicity. Also wouldn't the moving front chain ring mean a worse q factor?
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Re: The 1x Drivetrain I want & how: 14s w/ 12s chain. perfect chainline [BigBoyND] [ In reply to ]
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BigBoyND wrote:
dfroelich wrote:
Wrapping a chain around a 9T cog would be a lot of drag.


This get's brought up every thread about cassettes with smaller cogs, but why? How many watts do you suppose 9t cost you when you say "a lot of drag"? And how much time do you spend in your fastest cog? It's unlikely to add as much time as you think it might.

Ceramic Speed is the big one using this when pushing their (not yet shifting) chain free drive system. Looking at their own friction facts reports, I do not see this exact test. Maybe I'm missing it. When they compare pulley sizes, the 15T/15T combo rolls about 10% faster than the 11T/15T combo, but the difference is only 0.2W! (slightly over 1.2W vs slightly under 2.3)

Now, their comparison between 11/10 and 10/11 is about the same, despite the smaller tooth jump, 2.35W vs 2.55. That supports their claim that the drag loss at smaller and smaller cogs is not linear.

So, MAYBE a 9T cog would 15% worse than a 10, which is 10% worse than an 11.

But still, the total magnitude is still small...perhaps 3W...as you say, a rarely used combo. So, OK, I agree with you.

...or I messed something up.
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Re: The 1x Drivetrain I want & how: 14s w/ 12s chain. perfect chainline [DFW_Tri] [ In reply to ]
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DFW_Tri wrote:
milesthedog wrote:
hack a di2/AXS/We/Campy shifter to be able to move 14 shifts.


This raises an interesting point I have wondered about. I guess I don’t understand the mechanics/electronics behind a RD and blip box. But, is there a reason they couldn’t shift up and down 14 times (or 30 times) if the rest of the setup allowed for such shifting? In other words, does it really require a hack? And if so, what does that involve?



There's no technical reason a "universal" electro-mechanical rear derailleur couldn't exist that would work with virtually any cog count and spacing. You might need different jockey wheels, depending on the differing chain dimensions, but it's simply be a matter of programming the total sweep from some baseline position (outermost cog?), the number of steps, and the pitch between steps. Unfortunately, SRAM and Shimano have a vested interest in not making their systems universally adaptable.

"They're made of latex, not nitroglycerin"
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Re: The 1x Drivetrain I want & how: 14s w/ 12s chain. perfect chainline [milesthedog] [ In reply to ]
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milesthedog wrote:
So, a new company named S-ride came out with a 13s cassette that fits on a 10/11s freehub body by bringing the inner cogs inward shaped to the dish of the wheel:




  • Now, if this were paired with an xdr freehub, this could go to 14s with a 12s chain
  • What I'd like to see is a crankset that allows for a direct mount chainring, and the mount area between the crank arm and the bb is ~1+cm wide, and a servo motor (inside the spindle?) moves the chainring in an out perpendicular to the bb to enable the chainline to remain more in line than even on 2x as the rear derailleur moves in and out.
  • hack a di2/AXS/We/Campy shifter to be able to move 14 shifts.
  • 9-10-11-12-13-14-15-17-20-23-26-29-32-36 pair with a 44t chainring and you've got the range of a 54x11 and 34x28 with pretty nice spacing
  • while that's gearing perfect for scaling and descending mountains, you'd obviously be able to have some amazingly tight spacing with something like a 14s 10-28/30 for flat to rolling tri's.

I’ll take a: 11-12-13-14-15-16-17-19-21-23-25-28-31-34 with 55-39 chainrings, with a 110 BCD. 130bcd is also acceptable, but 107 or direct mount chainrings are not cool in my book.
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Re: The 1x Drivetrain I want & how: 14s w/ 12s chain. perfect chainline [Ohio_Roadie] [ In reply to ]
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I'm just waiting for Shimano or Sunrace to make 12spd cassettes in road sizes (that fits on a standard Shimano freehub). An MTB right shifter and derailleur is the hot ghetto ticket for 1x!
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Re: The 1x Drivetrain I want & how: 14s w/ 12s chain. perfect chainline [OddSlug] [ In reply to ]
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OddSlug wrote:
If we're moving gears through motors along spindles then why not do it on the rear.

That's basically how one of the first-ever derailleur systems - the Gradient - worked in the 1890s.

Although it had a tensioner pulley, it didn't use a jockey pulley to rip the chain from cog to cog. Instead, there was a device that lifted the chain off of the freewheel during shifts. So the shift sequence was basically to raise the chain up off the cogs -> shift the cogs -> lower the chain back onto the cogs. Because the cogs moved laterally instead of the chain, the system gave a straight chainline regardless of the gear you were in.
Different variants of the system used different ways of controlling the chain lifter. In some, the rider controlled it with a lever, while in others, it was triggered by backpedaling.

The approach of moving the cogs instead of the chain actually continued to exist for a surprisingly long time.
The French company Terrot appears to have made a 4-speed system before WWI which used a "modern" 2-pulley cage at the cogs along with its sliding freewheel, and this was manufactured for a few decades. Since it had a jockey pulley, it was just like typical derailleur systems in that it didn't need a chain lifter; the jockey pulley just wrenched the chain from cog to cog as the cogs moved.
The British company TriVelox implemented a similar design in the 1930s, and appears to have been making them until some time around 1950.
Last edited by: HTupolev: Apr 15, 19 11:36
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Re: The 1x Drivetrain I want & how: 14s w/ 12s chain. perfect chainline [gary p] [ In reply to ]
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gary p wrote:

There's no technical reason a "universal" electro-mechanical rear derailleur couldn't exist that would work with virtually any cog count and spacing. You might need different jockey wheels, depending on the differing chain dimensions, but it's simply be a matter of programming the total sweep from some baseline position (outermost cog?), the number of steps, and the pitch between steps. Unfortunately, SRAM and Shimano have a vested interest in not making their systems universally adaptable.

I've been playing around with the Xshifter system, and while this is a hack that converts a standard derailleur into a pseudo-electronic system (the derailleur is still activated by pulling a short length of cable), that's basically how it works. You set the number of shifts, the high and low limits, and then you can go back and fine tune the distance for each individual shift. So its largely been done, just not with a self-contained electronic system...

"I'm thinking of a number between 1 and 10, and I don't know why!"
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Re: The 1x Drivetrain I want & how: 14s w/ 12s chain. perfect chainline [Warbird] [ In reply to ]
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Warbird wrote:

I've been playing around with the Xshifter system, and while this is a hack that converts a standard derailleur into a pseudo-electronic system (the derailleur is still activated by pulling a short length of cable), that's basically how it works. You set the number of shifts, the high and low limits, and then you can go back and fine tune the distance for each individual shift. So its largely been done, just not with a self-contained electronic system...


I was going to bring up Xshifter as proof (crude as it is) that the concept is viable.

"They're made of latex, not nitroglycerin"
Last edited by: gary p: Apr 15, 19 11:45
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