I upgraded an older Felt CX bike to mullet drivetrain (SRAM AXS) with MTB rear derailleur (11/50). I use a 42T oval up front. No hill too big for me with the above gearing. On the road, anything north of 24mph tends to spin me out so I’d probably be happy with 44 or 46T upfront and keep the 11/50 in back.
I think that it was Vegan Cyclist that uses 1x on the road 54T, 11/46.
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I’m a big fan of running the AXS mullet setup for gravel and road, but I run 10-50 or 10-52 cassettes to get a little more top end. Having the 10 cog in the back gives you about 3mph more top end compared to running a cassette with an 11. You need an XD-R or XD compatible freehub, but most hubs have that option. I’ll run a 42 or 44 front ring, the 44 gives me a comfortable cadence of around 90rpm at 32mph. I can push a bit above 35mph for a while (~100 cadence) and can pedal briefly up to around 40mph (and I’m not a crazy spinner). I’ve found very few situations where cadence gets uncomfortable on the road running the 44/10 (or even running 42/10). I used to race my XC MTB in gravel races running 38/10 and that was a bit of a spin-fest at times, but I still never got dropped from lack of gearing (not slow rolling, often competing for age group podiums).
Even with the 11-50 cassette, you shouldn’t be spinning out at 24mph with a 42 tooth ring. 24mph would be a cadence in the high 70’s. At 90 RPM, you should be doing about 27mph on normal road tires.
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I prefer 2x for gravel/ mixed road in case there is lots of differences between the nominal speed driving. E.g. winter conditions (ice, snow etc) in generally are much slower than summer rides in tarmac. I think this applies also for road rides where are long climbs.
1x works well in specifc use case where the speed difference between min and max is not huge. E.g. cyclocross, XC, rough gravel. Also 1x works very well in road bikes if road is relative flat. E.g. in my area i can use big ring (50x 10-26) just fine without dropping to small ring. Some hills goes a bit slow cadence but still can keep power in endurance zone or very close.
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Gear ranges are largely identical, often larger on 1x. You could get identical or harder. 440 % are 440 %, no matter whether you realize them on a 1x or 2x.
Gravel gearing just allocates them on the climbs end where often you’d have no gears with road gearing. Up until recently, there was no way to officially get sub-1:1 gearing on a Shimano road group set. You have way more flexibility with 1x to place that gear range where you want it.
Another point is that most riders I have ridden with (including myself when I had a FD on my bike), they’d stay in the big ring for as long as possible. On my mountain bikes with FD, some rolling terrain was a major pain point as I felt that I was constantly between chainrings.
@eddiegrinwald @dthansen Just a copy of an old reply of mine. But it’s still relevant for this discussion.
"I think most of it comes down to “it depends”.
In my humble opinion when you live in an area with very steep climbs then maybe a 2x with a 11-32/50-34 would be better. In all other situations I would go 1x.
With a 12 or 13 speed and some good research about your cadence and power you can tackle everything with a 1x setup. You have the range and small steps required for flat, hills and even mountains. Smaller jumps with a 2x is a non discussion in my book. Because when you always want to have the smallest jumps between shifts you are constantly shifting your front and rear derailleur for the smallest jumps. I don’t know anyone who does that. They shift at the rear derailleur until they run out of cogs and only then will they shift the front derailleur. And in that situation they don’t get the smallest jumps.
And drivetrain loss is relatively small with a clean (and waxed) chain (source: https://youtu.be/uE7CqgRkD8c?t=375).
And also as mentioned earlier, how much time do you spend in your 9/10/11 cogg? If you spend a lot of time there, you have the wrong gearing. The 80/20 rule applies here as well. 80% of the time you should spend somewhere in the middle of the cassette. The other 20% you should spent in the bigger or smaller cogs.
I use a 1x13 from Rotor with a 46 chainring and a 10-36 with a waxed Shimano XTR CN-M9100 12 speed chain for road as well as gravel. I live in an actuall somewhat hilly part of the Netherlands. And this combo is spot on for me (around 300watt ftp) for all the terrains I have nearby. For the flats at cruising speed (33kph) I sit spot on in the middle of my cassette (17 tooth cog). When going up or graveling I’m somewhere in my 19, 21, 24, 27 tooth cogs. Still a straight enough chainline.
And if I want to make it really exotic, I also have a 10-46 cassette when I go for some singletracks, Alps or very long gravel rides. For example Unbound 2023".
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An evergreen debate, truly. I’ll add to reply count if not to insight:
-I’m all 1x across MTB, gravel, commuter and “endurance road” bikes. I live in Seattle, so plenty of rolling terrain as well as some very long climbs. I do not miss having front derailleurs in my life. Ultimately this decision comes down to your terrain and fitness. Various Jumbo-Visma riders were running 1x setups in rolling road stages this season, so they can obviously work well on the road. Of course no one here has the watt/kg numbers those guys push so YMMV.
-LOL to the hoary old contention that Shimano is more reliable than SRAM. They just recalled all their high end road cranksets, their MTB brakes have been abysmal for years, and SRAM Force/Red Flattop chains outlast DuraAce in various tests. I personally greatly prefer the removable/swappable batteries and true wireless setup for SRAM, as well as their shifter layout.
-42x10 gear ratio will get you over 30MPH at a cadence of 90. Do you really need to be putting down the power at speeds over 30MPH with any regularity?
-I would not buy an 11s Di2 bike right now, as we all expect a 12s version to come out very soon. That version will likely require a Microspline cassette, so not a particularly easy upgrade, and some wheels may not be easily backward compatible to a microspline freehub body. Somewhat ironically a major point of that upgrade will be to make a more viable 1x12 system.
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I rode that setup before switching to 1x. It has a smaller gear range than SRAM’s 10–44 cassette (420 % vs. 440 %). Gear range is not a reason to go one way or another.
What research are you referring to?
IMHO it is largely a matter of what you are used to, what kind of terrain you ride, and, to a degree, what your preferences are. With triples on my mountain bikes (I skipped 2x and went straight to 1x about 2 years ago, after my road bike), on relatively flat terrain, I sometimes felt as if I was constantly between chainrings.
On road bikes with a FD, most people (myself included when I had one with a FD) would stick to the big chainring for as long as possible and cross chain at liberty. One of the reasons why I stuck to a 11–32 cassette back then was because I liked using 50:28 quite a bit to get up some kickers. That’s also why the “you have more unique gears” argument is true, but the difference is typically much smaller in practice (about 14 gears).
That’s also a good point. Ideally, the last gear is an overdrive gear. Personally, I’d be interested in a hypothetical cassette where my 10-tooth cog is replaced with a 9-tooth cog. With SRAM eTap AXS I could confirm what I thought to be true, namely, that I rarely use the second-smallest cog. The smallest cog is my “downhill” gear. Efficiency is not that important for the rare situations I use them.
The only thing I’d say is that while your suggestion gives you highest efficiency, I’d prioritize having enough climbing gears.
Oh, interesting. I was thinking of getting this drivetrain with my new road bike, but someone in the industry advised me against it. How do you like it? Rotor’s cranks are works of art and seem very highly regarded. I also have a Rotor oval chainring on my mountain bike. (They had M9000 XTR chainrings on sale for 29 €, couldn’t say no to that. 
)
For the terrain I am riding, I would have picked the 10–39 cassette. I think I’d really like the gearing, the big steps on the climby side are really to my liking. (Even when I rode 2x, I did replace my Ultegra rear cassette with a SRAM Force 11-speed cassette as I preferred SRAM’s gearing.)
I grew up as a mountain biker and came to road riding quite late in life. Perhaps that’s why I don’t mind being at various cadences, but I think you make a great point: cyclists should feel comfortable at a very wide range of cadences. Being a cadence queen is a hindrance as there will always be situations where you are in a “non-optimal” cadence, even with a very closely spaced cassette.
This print screen is a part of an excel sheet which I used to determine which chain ring and cassette I needed to match a compact setup.
You see the gear ratios of a compact setup. The light grey ones are combinations which you shouldn’t use in the first place. But most people do… But if you leave that aside, and just start at 50x11 and try to make the smallest steps to 34x28. You will see especially from 88.2 gear inches that if you want the smallest steps you are constantly switching front and rear up to 47.3 gear inches.
Who does that? No one? So why not use a 1x then.
I like it very much. It is bomb proof. I’ve been using it for more then 3 years now. It never needed adjustment, it always worked. It survived Unbound 2023 without issues. The only major drivetrain issue I had was that there was mud between the chain links. Which made it fell off the front chainring. But besides that, flawless. ( I’m jinxing it right now).
I used the 10-46 during Unbound. Perfect gearing for me.
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You’re using the 1x13 rotor hydraulic drivetrain, right? Does that tie you into their wheels?
I think this is a bit of a false analogy….you aren’t necessarily looking for the “smallest” jumps, just “smaller” jumps between gears.
Unless you are using Di2 and have the synchro shift engaged, most of us probably don’t even know what gear combos are the smallest jumps. But the jumps between cogs will be still be smaller than a 1x, even though they may not be the “smallest”.
But it’s that still the case when comparing 11, 12 or even 13 speed cassettes?
With an 11 speed you only have 14 unique gears. But does the average Joe with how they shift use those 14 unique gears?
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No, I bought their hubs. And send those over to Light Bicycle in China to lace them into a gravel wheelset and a road wheelset.
It added extra hassle and cost (and carbon footprint), but I could get the wheels I wanted on the dot.
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How is it hindrance? If people are out riding their bikes they’re having to deal with “non-optimal” no matter what so it’s just an “it is what it is” situation.
I don’t remember the exact discussion context, but I remember a podcast when Amber was still on and she mentioned constantly shifting to keep her cadence where she wanted. Not something she really consciously thought about but just sort of natural.
I feel like there are people who constantly tinker always and try to find the perfect gearing setup, the perfect workout that will increase their ftp, the perfect nutrition, etc. Then you have people who may give some thought to those things but then they just move on and ride their bikes.
Got a mild giggle from the “worrying about gear step percentage for better cadence” is a bridge too far from many in this crowd who count grams (weight), grams (carbs), calories & watts like Scrooge McDuck does $$$. I think most here are plenty aware of our cadence ranges within the broader scope and have them handled better than lots of other riders elsewhere.
Despite that capability, it can still be helpful to dial in cadence in the aim of marginal gains when we look at races and long events where the small stuff often adds up to real difference. It’s all situation and rider dependent of course, but the angle above is a miss for me 
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Tbh I’ve been so happy with AXS XPLR I’m seriously contemplating it on my next road bike (if I actually get another road bike; an ‘allroad’ setup is much more likely), with a 44 or 46T on the front. I’m a huge fan of the easier/harder paddle shifting, the power meter spider is great, you can carry a spare battery, the app gives you useful and actionable information, and you don’t have to lug the whole bike to a charging point.
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I think you completely missed my point….which is fine. At the end of the day, I couldn’t care less what anyone else rides. There is not definitive right or wrong……as always, the answer is “it depends” and varies according to terrain, background and preferences.
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I’m really thinking of building a cervelo soloist with xplr for road. I don’t have any climbs here. Mostly short and punchy. Thinking of 11-36 cassette with 44T chainring. Basically all I really need is an xplr derailleur, 1x crankset and I can just buy the standard rival shifters that are the same for a 2x setup? So if I ever decide to switch to 2x I would just need a new crankset and front derailleur ?
The XPLR rear derailleur is 1x only. If you need the option for future 2x configuration, you should get the standard Force AXS long cage derailleur, that is compatible up to 36T.
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@hpsims is kinda correct if you genuinely think you’ll only run the 10-36… But if you go XPLR, here’s an entire thread of using a XPLR rear derailleur with a 2x setup…
https://weightweenies.starbike.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=169523
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