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TECH NEWS
SRAM announces single-ring transmissions for the road
Component manufacturer SRAM is bringing its single-chainring transmissions to the road with a pair of variants on the Rival and Force groups joining the range it calls 1x.
SRAM introduced its first drivetrains based around a single chainring and massively wide-range sprocket set for mountain bikes in 2013, expanding the idea to cyclo-cross bikes in 2014 with Force CX1.
Now SRAM is aiming at road, gravel, adventure, fitness and triathlon applications with SRAM Force 1 (which replaces CX1) and SRAM Rival 1.
The 1x system (which SRAM wants us to pronounce 'one-by' - good luck with that) comprises three elements. SRAM’s X-Sync single chainrings are now available in a range from 38 to 54 teeth; wide-range 11-speed cassettes are available in 11-36, 11-32, and 11-30, plus the whopping 10-42 introduced for the original mountain bike 1x, which needs a special XD freehub body. Finally, there's the clutch mechanism rear derailleur which controls chain slap.
SRAM says: "Conventional thinking about what’s truly necessary on the bicycle is being scrutinized. Efficiency, lightweight and functionality are the preference over excess, redundancy and complexity."
The company says a 1x transmission can give the same range as a double chainset. A 46-tooth chainring with the 10-42 cassette in fact gives a slightly wider gear range than a 50/34 compact double with an 11-25 cassette. There are definitely some interesting possibilities here for inveterate ger tinkerers.
As well having appeal for general riding and messing about on dirt roads, the system may well suit time trail riders who want to keep things simple. with a 54-tooth chainring, a less outre cassette than the wide-rangers, like an 11-26, yields a gear range from 56 to 133 inches and no need to think about a front derailleur while you're fighting through the lactic acid.
SRAM will offer matching brake levers for its mechanical and hydraulic stoppers, and trigger shifters for flat-bar bikes.
Force 1 and Rival 1 components will become available this summer, starting with brake levers, disc brakes and derailleurs in June, cranksets and chainrings in July and the 11-36 cassette in August. Some cassette sizes are already available as they are part of existing mountain bike and cyclo-cross sets.
Prices are laid out in this Excel spreadsheet. Also: full specs of the new groups and SRAM's complete product booklet For Force 1 and Rival 1.
John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.
He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.
Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.
John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.
He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.
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46 comments
I bought a 42t Absolute Black CX cog a few months ago and with some cheap 2.5mm spaces converted my SRAM 2x10 to a 1x10 on a 11-28 rear cassette. Absolute blast for rocking around Tokyo town on a old frame I had.
Anyone know how chainline wear works over the long term with a 1x11 setup?
I started out thinking this was a bad idea, bit some of the comments make me reconsider.
I guess it really comes down to personal circumstances. I'm not fit and I do live in a hilly area, but if I can address the former...
Love it. Loads more options for road and cross-over stuff.
BURN THE HERETICS!
DON'T CHANGE ANYTHING EVER!
DISC BRAKE REFERENDUM ALONGSIDE ONE FOR THE EU!
Etc.
My '60s steelie is 1x, though with just 5 speeds...
Catch up SRAM!
Love it. I find with a double a lot of the range overlaps between the front rings, and if you want a smooth transition when changin at the front, you have to shift at the back too.
Those enormously wide cassettes could gain quite a following among recumbent riders.
Ok, not much point for me, a triple l over BUT I can see the use case on my son or wife's bikes. Easier to look after, easier to 'get', less choice to ride... but then of course I could 1 by whatever myself for SFA money.
I would be sorely tempted, but the rest of the groupset runs the risk of being too agricultural for my liking. I like robust kit (SRAM stuff is that) but I like finesse as well (SRAM don't do that well IME).
calm down chaps, no-one's forcing this on you...
Not exactly, but going the 1x/2x route and reducing some of the options certainly isn't helping those of us that want to use wide-range triples, whether on tourers or recumbents -or at least without turning the bars into a dog's dinner of shifters..
This "SRAM says: "Conventional thinking about what’s truly necessary on the bicycle is being scrutinized. Efficiency, lightweight and functionality are the preference over excess, redundancy and complexity."" seems ever so slightly inconsistent with a desire to sell us wireless electronic shifting and power meters.
The following works for me: 1x10/11 for cross; 1x11 for some MTB (trail rather than marathon XC where 2x10 works best for me); quite like having two rings on the road, although I admit on my relatively flat commute I don't get out of big ring.
Read a quote on BikeRadar that suggested that this would be good for shop staff selling bikes to newcomers as they would only have to explain one shifter. I guess people really are that stupid.
Looks very interesting to me. Anything to reduce complexity and maintenance. Less bits to go wrong, less wasted gears. Realistically on most setups there is duplications of gears and how many do you really use? I know I almost always use the middle ring, and only on the steepest of hills do I use the small ring with one gear or the big ring with 2 gears for when I'm going fast down hill. If this can give me the same low end gearing I could live with losing a few MPH down hill.
I would argue wireless electronic shifting does reduce complexity and excess. Losing all the wires and mechanics of the shifters and replacing it with some actuators and a few bits of electronics, which I would bet are going to be far more robust long term. They are more complex in some ways, but much simpler in others.
One ring to rule them all...
Haha, thanks, that's brightened up my mood!
Wow, 25 comments and nobody has even mentioned how unbelievably, god awfully ugly that rear mech is, remember when rear mechs used to actually look good?
Combined with that heinous cassette AND disc brakes? Might as well just stop shaving your legs, stick the flappy shorts and camelback on and be done with it.
@fukawitribe yes you're right, a clutch mech does reduce the chain bounce. My point was more that the NW chainring is the most important component in keeping the chain on and not having excess chain helps.
Ah fair shout, apologies - think I misunderstood things a tad. Coincidently i'm actually rather interested in your setup as I was thinking Wednesday night about trying to cobble together a very similar one for my wife - was going to start a thread until I saw this. Any gotchas setting up ? (or anyone else who's done similar)
No worries
It was all pretty straightforward really, you need to decide whether to put the ring in the inner or outer position but the outer position has a better chainline for the smaller sprockets you'll use most of the time. If you want to be super tidy then you'll need to unwrap the bar tape to get the outer cable out but you can just as easily leave it there so you can convert back to a double when you like.
Parts wise I used a 105 RD5700-A rear mech which is rated up to 30T but it is fine on a 32. Cassette is a SRAM 11-32 PG1070, KMC chain, RaceFace 38T NW chainring and it all works well. Used it in a couple of cx races last year and it was a bit crunchy sounding in the low gears once the chain got muddy but that can happen with any setup. It's been clattered about a lot and never dropped the chain once. Photo below.
IMG_20141024_093036.jpg
Looks great - and thanks for the info. Quick question on the chainset - did you mount the chainring as is or any furtling with spacers, bolts etc ?
I got a set of single ring bolts but you could also get some 2.5mm spacers and put them between the spider and the nut on the inside for the same result.
Having had a play with my mates mountain bike i've been thinking about this for the road for the last couple of months.
My conclusion, this is perfect for my computing bike. I have a triple that i commute on and rarely take it out of the middle cog so this sounds like a ideal option that will also give me the option to either go faster or find a hill on the way into work.
I completely agree with Joemmo's comments I've currently got my road & 'cross bike set up as 1x10 (I've been running a 38 superstar chainring with an 11-28 cassette on the road).
This give me a gear inch range of 36-92 inches with jumps between & no overlap. I sit in the middle of the cassette & it's noticeably quieter. Yes I do run out of gears at around 30mph, but I don't race on the road, the only place I do race is on the track & that's on a 86inch gear!
This just looks like SRAM trying to make some money out of a 'thing' that is actually pretty cheap to do yourself. You need:
- A Narrow-wide chainring like the one from RaceFace (£40) or Superstar (£25)
- some single chainring bolts or just some spacers to pad out your double bolts (£5)
- Optional:
- A wider range Cassette like an 11-32 (£20-40 depending)
- Possibly a new rear mech but most short cage shimano will handle a 32 with some tweaking. You do not need a fancy clutch mech if you make sure your chain is properly shortened
That's considerably less than £230. I have shimano 1x10- with a 38T and 11-32 cassette. Most of the sweetspot gears for rolling along are in the section of the cassette with the smaller jumps, I spin out at 30mph. Personally I think its a really practical solution for a lot of riders. It's simple and quiet, weighs less and it looks tidy.
How double dare they !
Devils advocate here but ...
Rival 1 crankset w/chainring is £ 141 @ full retail and i'm not sure that a 'properly shortened' chain will get rid of chain bounce over lumpy ground.
Not saying you can't make something up yourself or even that it's not a cracking idea - but to be fair to SRAM they're just announcing a new groupset here much of the lots of which goes to OEMs, same as any groupset, and no part of which prevents you from doing that DIY setup.
I have a normal rival rear mech on my road bike and a clutch rear mech on the cross bike,both running narrow wide front rings & no chain catcher. either have yet dropped a chain, despite me riding down some of the downhill MTB trails in the forest of Dean last week, on the cross bike of course, doing that on a road bike would be silly
All sounds jolly good fun
My point was merely that a clutch mech is doing something slightly different to what you get with just adjusting the chain length - true that on the road you hardly need it mind (except for a couple of potholes around here perhaps.....)
Is there a reason the price in EUR is higher than the one in USD? As far as I remember the groupsets by SRAM are still designed in germany, right?
Otherwise looks like there'll be some fresh food for the singlespeed enthusiasts amongst us!
I have been riding my CX bike on the road recently with single chainring (42) and an 11-32 cassette.
I really like the combination. 42x11 means I have to be pushing close to 30mph to spin out, and 42x32 will get me up even the steepest hills in my area (20% in some cases). 42x32 is equivalent to about a 34x26.
I thought I would find the cassette spacing a bit of problem on the road, but it is fine and I don't have any issues with feeling I am missing a ratio.
So overall I can see the single chainring works for some riders, but probably most will still prefer the range of a double chainring setup.
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