The logic behind dinner plate's, 50t+ cassette's

tubby74

Likes Bikes and Dirt
Maybe I could go down to a 30t or 28t chain ring... oh man this is a rabbit hole.
this is the future - triples with 28/30/34.

Because life gets in the way of riding my time comes in clumps. I might get out every weekend and a couple of mid weeks for a while, and then the bike hibernates for a couple of months. When I'm riding regularly the low gear seems less relevant. When its an odd weekend here and there I need my granny gear. 34-50 on a 27.5+ sometimes seems to tall an order for me. if its a long fire road climb then year I might just get off and walk. if its a short steep section though I don't want to be on and off all the time. bonus of the plus tires is in that really low gear you can still keep moving forward on some steep stuff.
 

stirk

Burner
Giant cog as they called them back in the day are just cool if you're running 1x.

Close thread........
 

BB1

Likes Dirt
Even roadies are starting to go 1x (See the 3T Strada for example).

Simplicity is the biggest factor for me on the MTB - one less thing to go wrong, get mangled, etc. I'm still playing with ratios but it looks like an 11 speed 11-48 (Garabuk) with 32t chainring covers everything I ride.
 

Mr Crudley

Glock in your sock
Simplicity is the biggest factor for me on the MTB - one less thing to go wrong, get mangled, etc. I'm still playing with ratios but it looks like an 11 speed 11-48 (Garabuk) with 32t chainring covers everything I ride.
Point taken and I've heard simplicity rolled out quite a few times to explain 1x. Then with the saved handlebar real estate, on went dropper remotes, remote fork lockouts and now a dabble electronic shifter. This doesn't sound simple in the bigger picture coming from much the folks that said 'simplicity' in the last season.

I think the real reason was due to many linkage systems particularly beyond 140mm of rear travel have much of the monkey motion near the BB. Going 1x saves a load of space and gives the design freedom to put more rotating bits there.

Overall, 1x works good enough for me. A wider range that doesn't involve stupidly more expensive or heavier cassettes is all that is needed.
 

Elpho

Likes Bikes
I run a 10-50 with 32T front and 29er wheels, with the trails in tassie and a bad back, having that granny gear lets me ride a lot longer than I could on previous bikes with less gear range.
 

Earlysport

Likes Bikes
Smaller front ring (26 or 28t) and 9 or 10t rear with somewhere between 36 & 42t big end in the cassette = less chain, more bb clearance over logs and rocks, less weight, shorter cage rear mech.

I ran capreo 9-34 and 26t front. You guys that say you can spin out 32-10 must be pedaling at 50+ Kmhr. I’ll give that up for benefit the rest of the time. I run capreo and 32t on my dh rig and still don’t need the 9t pedalling into the moon booter on A line, and that’s over 60 kmhr. I run a custom short cage Xtr rear mech.

Cheers.
 

Cardy George

Piercing rural members since 1981
It's been incredible watching the industry refine their "solutions" to these problems.
  • Go 1x to simplify shifting
  • Create bigger cassettes and derailleurs to fight back gear range loss.
  • Larger cassette ranges have large steps between gears, create more cogs to smooth off step distance.
  • Create new hub standard that pushes the most fragile part of the bike out even further.
  • Make that two new hub standards.
  • Better change the front as well, but lets not use that still stiffer 20mm standard, lets create another 15mm standard that's just a little wider and forget that the first 15mm was best described as "the second best solution to a problem that didn't exist".
  • Fucking Torquecaps on 15mm to try and do what 20mm did a decade earlier...WITHOUT RATTLING!!!
  • While we're on the subject of axles, we now have the highest load bearing axle limited in size because of the stupid cassette game...if we ran a single cog we could put that up to 20mm as well as not dish the wheels and never had to hear about boost at all....EVER.



If only there were a way of getting large gear range, without having to make a huge dangling cage on one of the most fragile and vulnerable areas of the bike, while also reducing weight on the end of the swing arm to increase suspension performance, and get around odd wheel dishing problems that have spawned an array of "standard solutions"...Then maybe seal it up in a box and put it in a semi bath of lubricating liquid that only needs to get changed once a year.
Take 5kg off the total package and I'm all ears.......
 

Daniel Hale

She fid, he fid, I fidn't
I've walked past eagle riders uphills before. I have troubles getting over/hung up on things when going 2km/h.
so have I, they don’t like it either...so i give em a mouthful to boot, or offer to give them a push, which they hate my saying but are super great full when i give them a shove in the lower back
 

bear the bear

Is a real bear
I confess I like my 51T bailout gear. It serves 2 purposes when I blow up, I can still crawl up the climbs, just very slowly. And secondly, I tend to explore a bit so for very steep and loose fire roads and singletrack I can ride and not walk.
If I was still racing, I would go to Shimano's 12spd 45-10.
 

slowmick

38-39"
After reading the reviews on the GX and SLX 12 speed and all the tricks and gadgets required to tune the gears i think it's time to start buying up 11 speed. I set up my XT 11 speed with a 11 -46 cassette this afternoon by randomly adjusting the screws and poking it until the awful noises stopped. To my delight and surprise It happily changes through all the gears when by rights it should have all wrapped around the chain stay.
 

beeb

Dr. Beebenson, PhD HA, ST, Offset (hons)
I'm running a Garbaruk 11-50t casette with a 30t chain ring (on a 29er). I spend too much time behind a desk and am not fit enough to pedal up the steep fireroads repeatedly without the extra gearing. I also haven't run out of gear range at speed yet (I could with the same gearing on a 27.5" bike), and I still have (generally) enough bailout for when I'm sweating and wheezing my way back up the fireroad to the top. It basically covers everything from crawl to flat-out for me and weighs less than the 11-42t Shimano cassette as a bonus. 'Tis an expensive little bugger though.
 

Paulie_AU

Likes Dirt
I have just gone from running 11-42 with either 32 or 34t on 27.5 to 10-51 32t on 29er. I ride 170km a week with 3 MTB rides and 4 road rides and would currently consider my bike fitness ok. Today was fucken hot and I really enjoyed the 51 bail out gear when it was needed in some techy climbs. I could have made it on my 34 42 combo but I would have been redlining. While I don't think I will use the 51 often I can really see the benefit as I enjoy tech climbs and hate walking/pushing with a passion.
 
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