Quote:
Originally Posted by RichieRich
Agreed on the gravel/road crossover with one caveat... pay attention to the crankset. A friend recently bought a decent "road bike" and it seems to be very nicely kitted out... but he didn't pay attention or notice that the largest chainring is a 48t. He basically thought he had a roadbike but it has gravel/cyclocross gearing. This is fine if your smallest cassette ring is a 9 or 10t, but that's unusual as the standard is an 11 or 12. For the average road rider a 48t will be too small, shoot for a 50/34 or 52/36 with a wider 11-28 or 11-30 cassette.
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I get what you’re saying, but a 48/11 puts you at about 50km/h at 90 rpm, 55 km/h at 100rpm. If you are able to routinely spin out with that, then you probably want a full on road bike anyway. For most people that isn’t an issue.
My high end road bike I went with a 50/34 chainring, and an 11-34 cassette. If I’m on a flat course there are times that a bigger chainring would be useful (mostly for higher efficiency running in the middle of the cassette), but at least as often I am thankful to have bottom end gearing living west of Calgary and doing loads of climbing.
So I respectfully disagree that a regular gravel drivetrain would be limiting for most people. Maybe my judgement is coloured by the type of terrain I ride.
Now want to debate 1X versus 2X?
That one I think is very debatable, but so far I’m still 2X when I’m not on the mountain bike.