Going from a triple to a double – what don’t I know?

[jrenaut]

@EasyRider 154903 wrote:

I agree with Hozn, go 1×10, for the novelty and weight savings.

Haha weight savings. I could save more weight by removing the rack and fenders.

So I was looking at a gear inch calculator. I’m currently 50/39/30 and 10 speed 12-30. The gear inches in gears I actually use on a regular basis range from 43 to 103. If I switched to 48 and 11-42, that would be 30 to 116. I’d never really thought about that.

This brings up two questions – in 1X10, can I use all 10 without issue? I guess there’s no front derailleur to scrape so probably? And it’s likely the 11-42 would fit on my wheel? This is intriguing. It’s cheaper, too, because I don’t need a new brifter or a new derailleur.

[hozn]

@jrenaut 154907 wrote:

Haha weight savings. I could save more weight by removing the rack and fenders.

So I was looking at a gear inch calculator. I’m currently 50/39/30 and 10 speed 12-30. The gear inches in gears I actually use on a regular basis range from 43 to 103. If I switched to 48 and 11-42, that would be 30 to 116. I’d never really thought about that.

This brings up two questions – in 1X10, can I use all 10 without issue? I guess there’s no front derailleur to scrape so probably? And it’s likely the 11-42 would fit on my wheel? This is intriguing. It’s cheaper, too, because I don’t need a new brifter or a new derailleur.

Yeah, don’t put too much hope in weight savings. It might be lighter, but the n/w rings are heavier and the rear derailleurs are quite a bit heavier. Mine did happen to weigh a little less (less than 200g IIRC), but I was also switching to hydro and so there were lots of things changing.

But, yes, if you go 1×10 you can use the entire range. I use the entire 11sp range on my 11-40 cassette with a 50t ring. The big-big combo probably isn’t the best chain line (on my short-chainstay road bike), but it works fine. If your wheel is 10sp compatible (assuming standard Sram/Shimano 10sp freehub body), you can use one of the 11-40/11-42 10-speed cassettes out there (e.g. Sunrace makes a few options as does Praxis, I believe. Probably there are some Shimano options too). I currently am setup with 11-36t cassette with a 44t ring on my commuter. 11-36t is easier / cheaper than 11-40/42, but I might switch to 11-40 when I finish this cassette.

So go “all in” for 1x, you will want a clutch derailleur that will clear the largest cog you expect out back. You’ll want a new cassette, and you’ll want a narrow-wide chain ring. Everything else can stay the same.

So, my experience has been doing this with SRAM; if you’re using Shimano you might need to give a little more consideration to part compatibility. SRAM 10sp is really easy because road and mountain bike parts are interchangeable (and also SRAM has lots of 1x support in their road groups too). Also SRAM 11sp and 10sp rear derailleurs are interchangeable, which further makes it easy to later upgrade to 11sp shifters & cassette.

Finally, bear in mind that if you want to mix and match Shimano road/mtb or Shiman w/ SRAM, there are cable pull adapters available to make this possible: http://www.jtekengineering.com/shiftmate/

[hozn]

@drevil 154905 wrote:

When I set up 1x on my mountain bikes, a narrow wide chainring like the Wolftooth was important to keeping the chain on, but almost as important was a “clutch” style rear derailleur that resists chain slackening. This is important in mountain biking where your bike/drivetrain/chain is bouncing around a lot. I believe most, if not all, decent to higher end mountain bike rear derailleurs are “clutch” now.

I know diddly about road components, but are they as prominent there as well?

Yeah, SRAM has clutch derailleurs for road (their “1” line — i.e. Apex 1, Rival 1, Force 1). I have a MTB rear derailleur on my commuter (X9); the only downside to that is that there’s no cable barrel adjuster on the RD (I guess for MTB they assume you have that on your lever), so I have an inline adjuster. SRAM’s road clutch RDs do have barrel adjusters, so that is one reason to favor road. SRAMs 11sp road or 10sp MTB both work for 10 or 11sp road shifters. (But to add some confusion, SRAM’s 11sp MTB stuff will *not* work.)

I have dropped my chain a couple times even with the clutch RD. I think both times was actually on the road — once was a speed bump and I think the other was just a perfectly shaped pothole). But never in the woods, where I used to drop my chain with some regularity when using a double + FD. So definitely the clutch + RD is very secure, but it still might happen.

The thing I probably like best about SRAM clutch RDs is their ability to lock open, making taking off and replacing the rear wheel a lot easier.

[EasyRider]

@jrenaut 154907 wrote:

If I switched to 48 and 11-42, that would be 30 to 116.

I think a 48 tooth single speed chainring would hit your chainstay, if you tried to mount it to your current crank’s middle position. You could put it on the outside, but I think cross chaining would be pretty bad in the low gears.
There’s another option, popular with the Bicycle Quarterly crowd, a 46/30. But cranksets for that combo are uncommon and pricey. Sugino OX, White Industries, Compass, etc.
FWIW, my bike is very similar to your Volpe, same geo, 32mm tires. I’ve tried many things on it but have settled on a 46/36/26. I’m not as strong as you, but everyone can use a triple on a windy day like today.

[jrenaut]

@EasyRider 154919 wrote:

I think a 48 tooth single speed chainring would hit your chainstay, if you tried to mount it to your current crank’s middle position. You could put it on the outside, but I think cross chaining would be pretty bad in the low gears.
There’s another option, popular with the Bicycle Quarterly crowd, a 46/30. But cranksets for that combo are uncommon and pricey. Sugino OX, White Industries, Compass, etc.
FWIW, my bike is very similar to your Volpe, same geo, 32mm tires. I’ve tried many things on it but have settled on a 46/36/26. I’m not as strong as you, but everyone can use a triple on a windy day like today.

Come bike my kids to school for a week, you’ll catch right up

I just took a look at it, and I’m not sure a 48 wouldn’t fit on the middle ring. If I got a new single speed crankset, that would take care of it? Or maybe not?

[hozn]

@jrenaut 154924 wrote:

Come bike my kids to school for a week, you’ll catch right up

I just took a look at it, and I’m not sure a 48 wouldn’t fit on the middle ring. If I got a new single speed crankset, that would take care of it? Or maybe not?

I don’t know the details of a road triple, but it looks like the chainline is 1.5mm further out than a road double (according to Sheldon Brown). SRAM offsets their X-Sync rings (narrow-wide) inboard 2mm, so I think if you go with a 48t X-Sync ring, chainline would be fine.

Edit: nevermind! — I misread that diagram/table. It looks like the middle ring for a triple is 45mm and the outside ring for a double is 46mm. With 5mm spacing the outside ring on a triple would be 50mm. So chain line would probably be a bit extreme if you put the n/w ring on the outside of a triple.

If you don’t want to change the crankset, I would vote for a smaller ring and/or don’t use SRAM (which offsets inboard). Someone may have some larger narrow-wide rings for you to test out to see what clears … ?

[ShawnoftheDread]

Just putting this out there as the voice of the boring, but why do anything? So you have a granny gear you never use. Just continue not to use it. Unless you break a brifter or a crank or FD, just leave it alone.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[EasyRider]

@ShawnoftheDread 154928 wrote:

Just putting this out there as the voice of the boring, but why do anything? So you have a granny gear you never use. Just continue not to use it. Unless you break a brifter or a crank or FD, just leave it alone.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

A valid point. Phrased differently: “Why don’t you buy some different new thing for your bike?”

[ImaCynic]

@ShawnoftheDread 154928 wrote:

Just putting this out there as the voice of the boring, but why do anything? So you have a granny gear you never use. Just continue not to use it. Unless you break a brifter or a crank or FD, just leave it alone.

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I have to agree with this. I don’t think there’s much to be gained, and it’s likely the only thing that’ll be lighter is your wallet.

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[huskerdont]

@EasyRider 154931 wrote:

A valid point. Phrased differently: “Why don’t you buy some different new thing for your bike?”

Or another bike. N+1. That’s what I did with my triple road bike. Left it as a triple and got a custom road bike with Ultegra 11. Use both depending on the situation.

But the Volpe is a really nice bike, and I could see wanting to reduce spin weight and clunkiness of shifting. Either way.

[TwoWheelsDC]

@ShawnoftheDread 154928 wrote:

Just putting this out there as the voice of the boring, but why do anything? So you have a granny gear you never use. Just continue not to use it. Unless you break a brifter or a crank or FD, just leave it alone.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Delete your account.

[Steve O]

@f148vr 154934 wrote:

I have to agree with this. I don’t think there’s much to be gained, and it’s likely the only thing that’ll be lighter is your wallet.

Or wait until something breaks. That’s what I did when I went from 3x to 1x. It was after my FD crapped out (It might have been the shifter; I can’t recall anymore exactly what went wrong). I actually ran it on 1x for several months through the end of FS2015 by adjusting the limit screws on the FD to the middle ring. I learned I didn’t really need the other rings, so I got rid of them and put a chain guard on the outside. I’m actually at 1×8 right now due to a little mixup, but will get back to 1×9 before long. My lowest gear is 42/32. I did Kill Bill with this setup.
My bike still weighs more than 30 pounds, so it wasn’t about weight for me; it was getting rid of 3 things that can break.

[jrenaut]

I realize the most efficient use of money would be to do nothing, but the thought of taking the front derailleur off and simplifying is really appealing. And I know my chain is shot, and probably the whole drivetrain, so most of it would be getting replaced anyway. Also it would be a good learning experience for me, as well as being fun.

[vvill]

@Steve O 154944 wrote:

Or wait until something breaks. That’s what I did when I went from 3x to 1x. It was after my FD crapped out (It might have been the shifter; I can’t recall anymore exactly what went wrong). I actually ran it on 1x for several months through the end of FS2015 by adjusting the limit screws on the FD to the middle ring. I learned I didn’t really need the other rings, so I got rid of them and put a chain guard on the outside. I’m actually at 1×8 right now due to a little mixup, but will get back to 1×9 before long. My lowest gear is 42/32. I did Kill Bill with this setup.
My bike still weighs more than 30 pounds, so it wasn’t about weight for me; it was getting rid of 3 things that can break.

I did something similar on my beater bike. FD stopped working, so I just cut the FD cable. It was a 3×7, then a 1×7 that would sometimes drop to the little ring. I’ve since invested a little more to make it a 1×10 and it works great even for towing a 50lb kid.

[jrenaut]

It’s funny that, with this bike, I’m now thinking the simplicity of 1X10 would be awesome, while I just saw that the latest top-end Xtracycle Edgerunner is 3X10 and mine is only 3X8 and thinking “MUST HAVE MORE GEARS”. Also it comes with hydraulic discs. It’s super sexy if you’re in the market.

[Author]

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