NIce job, good idea on the friction shifter good hack. You are correct 1X is being oversold, you get much more range with 2X and now you are ready for anything. The one drawback with gxp cranks that I found is that smallest ring available is 24. With the old cranks where you bolt on the chainring individually you can go as low as 22.
I went from a 3x8 to a 1x12, like you, I went with a $70 cad 9-50t cassete that I got from Amazon. I did however put a $6 40t oval cahinring to get the exact low and high gear ratio I had with my 3x8. I have a 38t chain ring now and I am exhausted for every steep hill I climb. Since I still have the stock crankset. I am considering putting my spare 28t chain ring that came stock on bike and just "manually" move the chain over when I feel like I don't want to muscle a 38t chain ring.
Good job on that upgrade. I'm sure you've already found the friction shifter for the front is easy to use, and you won't ever need to worry about adjustment - if you check it in a year, you'll probably find the cable is far looser than when you set it up, and you won't even notice because friction is so forgiving. Also, popping onto the small ring when faced with a sudden uphill is FAR more graceful than clunking through that one-by downshift. I especially love that it's not important to you that everything matches, as long as it works. I hope you ride the paint off that bike!!
I got the inexpensive set through Amazon Sunrace friction shifters. I have never used these type of shifters, I wanted to see how it will work with my setup and be within my budget. Pleasantly surprise and so far they are functioning well.
The logic in the video doesn't check out. 1x is not for "flat terrain". Your double: 24 x 42 lowest = 16 gear inches, 36 x 10 highest is 104 gear inches. That 36 x 10 and even 36 x 12 you would essentially not even/almost never use on an MTB (at 100rpm you're hitting about 50-55kph or 30-35mph). How often are you spinning, pushing it, at those speeds? Pretty much never. For 1: 30t x 52 1x setup has a low of 17 gear inches and high of 86 gear inches. 86 gear inches is the same as that 36 x 12 on your 2x. 1x 3-bolt DM chainrings are also a dime a dozen on AliExpress etc, so if you had a super heavy loaded trip coming up you could easily swap to even a 26t in about 10mins. A new Deore 11sp setup would have been a very similar cost as all that 2x hardware you bought. Actually that 9-50 and just pairing your crank to a smaller chainring would have had a lower gear than what you've bolted on. You essentially went through all that hassle, complication and effort to have a drivetrain that has no better steps (the gaps are more or less the same, so you don't even get the real benefits of a 2x or 3x which is tigher gaps at the top end) to have essentially the same low gear (less than 1 gear inch difference is pretty much nothing, like 1/4 of a click), with more weight and more complication, poorer chain retention and a noisier bike. The only thing you gained? 1 click higher gear vs. any off the shelf 1x 11sp or 12sp setup (which isn't really a gain since your video was about getting lower gears). A bit of a nicer chainline is probably the only real gain after all this.
she fixed the cross chaining wear issue with 1×, also the grinding of cross chaining and dropped chains whilst cross chaining in the lowest gear, 1× is for some people, not for all, much like clipless pedals, perhaps most don't want their purchasing options to be dictated to them by SRAM, seeing as SRAM just buy up other companies to make their products for them, Sedis chains for instance, before SRAM bought Sedis their chains were good and relatively cheap, now it's $100 to $300 for a chain and all they've done to the original Sedis design is put a flat top on it
Welcome to the 2x club :)
NIce job, good idea on the friction shifter good hack. You are correct 1X is being oversold, you get much more range with 2X and now you are ready for anything. The one drawback with gxp cranks that I found is that smallest ring available is 24. With the old cranks where you bolt on the chainring individually you can go as low as 22.
I went from a 3x8 to a 1x12, like you, I went with a $70 cad 9-50t cassete that I got from Amazon. I did however put a $6 40t oval cahinring to get the exact low and high gear ratio I had with my 3x8. I have a 38t chain ring now and I am exhausted for every steep hill I climb. Since I still have the stock crankset. I am considering putting my spare 28t chain ring that came stock on bike and just "manually" move the chain over when I feel like I don't want to muscle a 38t chain ring.
Looks like catalyst pedals. Pretty rare to see.
Good job on that upgrade. I'm sure you've already found the friction shifter for the front is easy to use, and you won't ever need to worry about adjustment - if you check it in a year, you'll probably find the cable is far looser than when you set it up, and you won't even notice because friction is so forgiving. Also, popping onto the small ring when faced with a sudden uphill is FAR more graceful than clunking through that one-by downshift. I especially love that it's not important to you that everything matches, as long as it works. I hope you ride the paint off that bike!!
I have a 3x9 Really thinking a 2x12 would be way better But Idk if i can do it and expensive!
fun bike, kind of a mongrel
👍👍
got to like saving money
Cool... =]
what friction shifter is that please
I got the inexpensive set through Amazon Sunrace friction shifters. I have never used these type of shifters, I wanted to see how it will work with my setup and be within my budget. Pleasantly surprise and so far they are functioning well.
The logic in the video doesn't check out.
1x is not for "flat terrain".
Your double: 24 x 42 lowest = 16 gear inches, 36 x 10 highest is 104 gear inches. That 36 x 10 and even 36 x 12 you would essentially not even/almost never use on an MTB (at 100rpm you're hitting about 50-55kph or 30-35mph). How often are you spinning, pushing it, at those speeds? Pretty much never.
For 1: 30t x 52 1x setup has a low of 17 gear inches and high of 86 gear inches. 86 gear inches is the same as that 36 x 12 on your 2x. 1x 3-bolt DM chainrings are also a dime a dozen on AliExpress etc, so if you had a super heavy loaded trip coming up you could easily swap to even a 26t in about 10mins.
A new Deore 11sp setup would have been a very similar cost as all that 2x hardware you bought. Actually that 9-50 and just pairing your crank to a smaller chainring would have had a lower gear than what you've bolted on.
You essentially went through all that hassle, complication and effort to have a drivetrain that has no better steps (the gaps are more or less the same, so you don't even get the real benefits of a 2x or 3x which is tigher gaps at the top end) to have essentially the same low gear (less than 1 gear inch difference is pretty much nothing, like 1/4 of a click), with more weight and more complication, poorer chain retention and a noisier bike. The only thing you gained? 1 click higher gear vs. any off the shelf 1x 11sp or 12sp setup (which isn't really a gain since your video was about getting lower gears). A bit of a nicer chainline is probably the only real gain after all this.
she fixed the cross chaining wear issue with 1×, also the grinding of cross chaining and dropped chains whilst cross chaining in the lowest gear, 1× is for some people, not for all, much like clipless pedals, perhaps most don't want their purchasing options to be dictated to them by SRAM, seeing as SRAM just buy up other companies to make their products for them, Sedis chains for instance, before SRAM bought Sedis their chains were good and relatively cheap, now it's $100 to $300 for a chain and all they've done to the original Sedis design is put a flat top on it
24-42 gives a way lower gear than 32-50. And that seems to be what she wanted.