Daydreaming of upgrades

AlexisBV

AlexisBV

Active Member
Had a chat at the LBS regarding power meters, and the simplest solution might be to go pedal-based with the powertap P1. They're cheaper than the 2inpower, and much simpler to install (no need to worry about bottom bracket compatibility). The downside is that the pedals are somewhat more vulnerable to damage in a 'bent than on a DF (except for ground scraping on tight curves which is not a factor for the Silvio), but when parking the bike against a wall I usually use a pedal as a support point. Not sure I'd do that with an expensive/breakable pedal.

Also, kinda sucks that I wouldn't be able to use my walkable SPD-style shoes.

On the plus side, Powertap says they're compatible with Qrings without any power offset.
 
AlexisBV

AlexisBV

Active Member
Hello everyone, I'm necro'ing my own post, because while time may pass, the allure of upgrades do not! I'm here again looking at further upgrades to the S30, this time, the big one: wheels. (No, I unfortunately did not win the lottery, however). If I go forward with this, it'll be expensive... here's why:

After a lengthy chat at my LBS, the most promising candidate wheel for now is the Bontrager Aeolus 37 Pro Disc.

This means, going for disc brakes, which after 2 Canadian winters of experience on my DF commuter bike with hydraulic brakes, should be awesome (not that I'd plan on riding the bent in the snow, but I've seen how reliable disc brakes are in the rain). Hydraulic brakes mean... new brifters. This means... eTap. Did I mention this will be expensive?

The question I have for the Cruzbike hive-mind has to do with compatibility. I really like the S30's stock gearing ratios with the 50/34 chainrings (Qrings in my case) + 11/36 cassette. I find the 34-36 granny gear combo becomes quite useful/necessary when the road points up 10% or more, so I don't want to lose that kind of ratio. However, when it comes to electronic shifting, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of options for that. Closest/best I've seen so far would be the SRAM Force eTap 12-speed RD with a 10-36 cassette, which other than having to spend more to switch to 12 speed, seems pretty good, and having tried a DF with it at my LBS, seems like a great upgrade from my stock derailleurs.

My current concern is about the compatibility with the chainrings. The SRAM website says the "drivetrain tooth capacity" (difference between min/max cassette + difference between min/max chainring tooth count) is 36 (What is the total drivetrain tooth capacity of SRAM RED or Force eTap AXS rear derailleurs?). With a 10-36 cassette and my 50-34 chainrings, the "total drivetrain tooth capacity" would be 41. However, this page (What 2x chainring options are compatible with the Force eTap AXS 36t-max rear derailleur?) says a 50/37 would work, which is a tooth capacity of 39, which is more than the first article says...

What is your take on this? Do you think I'd be able to keep my 50/34 Qrings? Or would I have to "downgrade" to a compatible circular 2x (such as a 46/33)? Are there better options I haven't considered?

Thanks!
 
rx7mark

rx7mark

Guru
AlexisBV said:
Hello everyone, I'm necro'ing my own post, because while time may pass, the allure of upgrades do not! I'm here again looking at further upgrades to the S30, this time, the big one: wheels. (No, I unfortunately did not win the lottery, however). If I go forward with this, it'll be expensive... here's why:

After a lengthy chat at my LBS, the most promising candidate wheel for now is the Bontrager Aeolus 37 Pro Disc.

This means, going for disc brakes, which after 2 Canadian winters of experience on my DF commuter bike with hydraulic brakes, should be awesome (not that I'd plan on riding the bent in the snow, but I've seen how reliable disc brakes are in the rain). Hydraulic brakes mean... new brifters. This means... eTap. Did I mention this will be expensive?

The question I have for the Cruzbike hive-mind has to do with compatibility. I really like the S30's stock gearing ratios with the 50/34 chainrings (Qrings in my case) + 11/36 cassette. I find the 34-36 granny gear combo becomes quite useful/necessary when the road points up 10% or more, so I don't want to lose that kind of ratio. However, when it comes to electronic shifting, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of options for that. Closest/best I've seen so far would be the SRAM Force eTap 12-speed RD with a 10-36 cassette, which other than having to spend more to switch to 12 speed, seems pretty good, and having tried a DF with it at my LBS, seems like a great upgrade from my stock derailleurs.

My current concern is about the compatibility with the chainrings. The SRAM website says the "drivetrain tooth capacity" (difference between min/max cassette + difference between min/max chainring tooth count) is 36 (What is the total drivetrain tooth capacity of SRAM RED or Force eTap AXS rear derailleurs?). With a 10-36 cassette and my 50-34 chainrings, the "total drivetrain tooth capacity" would be 41. However, this page (What 2x chainring options are compatible with the Force eTap AXS 36t-max rear derailleur?) says a 50/37 would work, which is a tooth capacity of 39, which is more than the first article says...

What is your take on this? Do you think I'd be able to keep my 50/34 Qrings? Or would I have to "downgrade" to a compatible circular 2x (such as a 46/33)? Are there better options I haven't considered?

Thanks!
Click to expand...
I have been recently researching this topic for a future build.

The new Force Etap Axs medium cage rear derailleur is good for a max cassette size of 36 and a total tooth range of 39 maximum. The short cage RD is good for a cassette size of 33t max and a max tooth range of 36. This is according to SRAM tech department. The medium RD is just starting to become available, so no real deals on these yet.

I think you might be able to push the cassette size limit with a Wolf Link, and you may be able to push the total tooth range another tooth or two, but you would need to be careful with the chain length. A article I found said it will work with a two link overlap instead of the SRAM recommended 4 link overlap. I have not tested this personally.

The other restriction that SRAM told me about is that the front derailleur will only work properly with a 13t difference in chain rings. They said if tried more my warranty would be voided.

Mark at Bike Smith suggested a hybrid system, basically a 1 x 12 Sram Axs rear derailleur and shifters and a friction shifter shifting the front. You would have to figure out where to mount the friction shifter. The 1x is the same RD as the 2x RD. This would allow something like a 46/30t chain rings with the 10-33t cassette. If you use the medium range RD the total tooth range is within the 39t limit. Rotor even has a crank available in short lengths with Q-rings direct mounted in this size. But its designed for 11sp, but the link distance is the same, and the chains are just a fraction of an inch thinner, so it will probably work. But I have not tested this either, so it would be at your own risk, and not covered by Rotor's warranty. They only have one chain ring set designed to work with Axs 12 speed, a 48/35t, this could work with the 10-36t cassette but would not give you the granny gear you want.

Good luck and let us know what you decide.
Mark
 
cranky cyclist

cranky cyclist

Guru
I am currently building my S40 with a Sram GX Eagle rear derailleur 1x system. I am installing an e thirteen 9/50 cassette and using a Microsoft bar end shifter that is indexed. My brakes however are mechanical disc. I know that there are other hydraulic disc brake systems. My wheels are DT swiss 1600 spline. This set up gives me a 567% gear ratio and my low gear is equivalent to 22inches. Hopefully I will be able to climb straight up a wall :)
 
Don1

Don1

Guru
I use 50-34 and 11-40 with the r8000 medium cage derailleur with no problems. Shimano state 34 is the max. So maybe you're overthinking it?
 
AlexisBV

AlexisBV

Active Member
Thanks for the suggestions. I'm reluctant to go with a non-eTap FD as it would defeat some of the purpose of moving to eTap, namely the "smart" auto-shifting of the FD depending on where you are in the cassette. I really wish they had a long cage version of the RD (like the SRAM GX I got with my S30), that would sure make things easier!
 
G

Greg S

Well-Known Member
AlexisBV said:
Only with the AXS brifters though, it doesn't appear to play ball with the FD according to their compatibility map...
Click to expand...
Sorry, I went back and read what you were looking for and saw you wanted to keep a 2x system with your Qrings.

The Eagle rear derailleur WILL work with Red road shifters but you'd realistically only use it for a 1x drivetrain. SRAM calls this a "mullet" build and the components are:
  • Red road shifters
  • Eagle AXS rear derailleur
  • 1X crankset with the chainring of your choice
  • Big cassette (10x50, 11x50 or others)
  • Eagle chain (flat top road chain won't work)
This setup will give you all the range you're looking for but there's no way (at least no way I know of) to have a 2x eTap drivetrain with the wide range you're looking for.
 
benphyr

benphyr

Guru-me-not
Since the road one can do 2x front in addition to the master control rear, why couldn't they just make the brains on the mountain rear master control be able to run 2x but has 1x as default. Road brain does 2x, mountain brain does 1x so use the road brain for both but with a default of 2x for road and default 1x for mountain. If they start doing this they will owe a lot of people no-brainer-royalties. Then they would have a solution for your situation and also for many gravel setups. It seems like that would be a really easy way to make a bunch of people happy without any significant extra work on their end.
 
G

Greg S

Well-Known Member
benphyr said:
Since the road one can do 2x front in addition to the master control rear, why couldn't they just make the brains on the mountain rear master control be able to run 2x but has 1x as default. Road brain does 2x, mountain brain does 1x so use the road brain for both but with a default of 2x for road and default 1x for mountain. If they start doing this they will owe a lot of people no-brainer-royalties. Then they would have a solution for your situation and also for many gravel setups. It seems like that would be a really easy way to make a bunch of people happy without any significant extra work on their end.
Click to expand...
It's not a matter of them being able to "talk" to each other, in fact, they probably would (Red AXS shifters, Red AXS front derailleur, Eagle AXS rear derailleur).

The problem is in order to accommodate bigger cogset on the Eagle 1x drivetrain, SRAM has chosen to eliminate parallelogram slant ( so called X-Horizon ) and utilize top pulley offset to handle the b-gap. Such derailleurs are almost incapable of handling multiple chainring setup.

Edited to add: the same is true of Sram mechanical (voice of experience here). I thought I'd try to change the S40 1x drivetrain to 2x with the minimum number of new components so I bought an Apex front derailleur, Apex left hand shifter (2x) but retained the Apex rear derailleur. Didn't shift worth crap. Tried hard to make it work (and to toot my own horn, I'm a pretty decent mechanic) and it just didn't. It was "pick which half of the cassette you want to shift properly". That's when I discovered the mysteries of parallelogram slant...
 
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benphyr

benphyr

Guru-me-not
So another inexperienced question: Can the eTap Road can do programmed shifting half-step or whatever it is called? It would do it more reliably and better than any human can so wouldn't a Road 2x setup with a narrow range cassette get you a kick butt range and gap size with the eTap fixing the pain in the butt front shifting issues that everyone complains about and solve any cross chaining issues that come about by having a human involved? I must be missing something. (I'm pretty behind the times with 2x9 Qx100, 3x9 Cruz Kit, 1x10 mountain winter, 3x10 touring, and 3x9 Catrike) I think I'm derailing the thread a little but then again what should I be dreaming of?
 
AlexisBV

AlexisBV

Active Member
benphyr said:
(...)I think I'm derailing the thread a little(...)
Click to expand...

As long as it's electronically derailed, it's on-topic... (ba-dum-tss)

Greg's suggestion about going the Eagle 1X path has got me thinking, but damn those cassettes cost almost as much as my commuter DF bike (which has hydraulic discs o_O)!
 
P

Postapocalypsia

Active Member
cranky cyclist said:
I am currently building my S40 with a Sram GX Eagle rear derailleur 1x system. I am installing an e thirteen 9/50 cassette and using a Microsoft bar end shifter that is indexed. My brakes however are mechanical disc. I know that there are other hydraulic disc brake systems. My wheels are DT swiss 1600 spline. This set up gives me a 567% gear ratio and my low gear is equivalent to 22inches. Hopefully I will be able to climb straight up a wall :)
Click to expand...
I too run a Sram GX Eagle 1x with a Microshift bar end shifter, but am not so ambitious with the cassette range. mine is a relatively more sedate 11/50 with a 42T Wolftooth chainring and 700x38 Schwalbe G one all rounds on Alexrims Evo rims. To be honest I haven't used the lowest gear yet but it is a good to have it in reserve! I haven't had the need (or stamina) to entertain a 9T top end so I admire your fitness! But I do love the Eagle setup, it never misses a beat.
 
TransAm

TransAm

Well-Known Member
Postapocalypsia said:
I too run a Sram GX Eagle 1x with a Microshift bar end shifter, but am not so ambitious with the cassette range. mine is a relatively more sedate 11/50 with a 42T Wolftooth chainring and 700x38 Schwalbe G one all rounds on Alexrims Evo rims. To be honest I haven't used the lowest gear yet but it is a good to have it in reserve! I haven't had the need (or stamina) to entertain a 9T top end so I admire your fitness! But I do love the Eagle setup, it never misses a beat.
Click to expand...
I put Eagle AXS wireless on my V20, also with the 11/50t cassette, but a 50t up front. But I have not been able to keep it in adjustment. I'm wondering if the derailleur is just too big for the hanger, which seems easier to bend than my other bikes' hangers. When in the low gear, the pulley is damn near dragging on the ground, so that's a big lever arm. Has anyone else had problems or success with wide range 1x derailleurs on Cruzbikes?
 
G

garychuck

New Member
Postapocalypsia said:
I too run a Sram GX Eagle 1x with a Microshift bar end shifter, but am not so ambitious with the cassette range. mine is a relatively more sedate 11/50 with a 42T Wolftooth chainring and 700x38 Schwalbe G one all rounds on Alexrims Evo rims. To be honest I haven't used the lowest gear yet but it is a good to have it in reserve! I haven't had the need (or stamina) to entertain a 9T top end so I admire your fitness! But I do love the Eagle setup, it never misses a beat.
Click to expand...
Send pictures of setup please.. how is the GX Eagle rear derailleur mounted..
 
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