Old Boone which was doored was 1x Force – 40 Chainring, 11-28 in the back. 40/28 is racing gearing. Any steep hill required good sustained effort — Walter Reed hill was really hard efforts on the Boone. First transmission change I put a 11-32 on the back and was decent, but not something I’d want to take up a long steep climb.
New Diverge is 1x Force: 42 Chainring, 10-42 casette. 42-10 so far I’ve only been able to spin out on it on some extreme downhills. 42-42 is spin-too-much-to-win for me; there’d no doubt I can get up any hill, but I’d probably fall over from poor balance instead. If you went with a 40, 10-42, you’d probably get real close to your 22 Gear Inches.
The issue I have with using the 1x for long touring is missing a lot of the in-between gears. I seem to be stuck a lot in either a too-hard gear (Rule #5) or too easy, and have no other recourse other than to grind it out and deal with the sore knees later.
–Pete
