00:00There has been a trend in off-road riding in recent years and that is a reduction in
00:04the number of chainrings on your bike and an increase in the size of the cassette.
00:09So in this video we're going to let you in on the five key things you need to know about
00:13gearing
00:13before choosing your gravel bike.
00:24So to calculate the number of gears your bike have you need to take the number of sprockets
00:28on your cassette and times it by the number of chainrings which should mean that a two-by setup
00:33is instantly the winner.
00:35Yeah well that's technically true that it does have more gears but it's actually the ratio of the gears
00:40and the range of the gears that has the biggest impact on how it rides and that will be a
00:44little
00:44bit different for on and off-road riding too.
00:47So by range we mean the spread in your gears and the bigger your range the smaller your smallest
00:55gear can be and the bigger your biggest gear can be. So for example with a two-by setup say
01:01with
01:01Shimano's GRX system that can have a 48 tooth largest ring on the front and a 31 tooth smallest
01:08ring on the front and it can pair that with a 34 tooth cassette on the back. Now those two
01:13chainrings
01:13on the front have a massive 17 tooth jump between them that is huge. Now this is similar to SRAM's
01:20AXS
01:20system which can use a 43 and a 30 tooth chainring on the front and pair that with the lowest
01:26gear of
01:26a 36 tooth sprocket. Now these massive ranges of gears are particularly beneficial if you're planning
01:33on using your bike on both the tarmac so a bit of road riding but also if you plan to
01:37be winching
01:38yourself up off-road climbs laden with heavy bike packing bags. Now that's not to say that you can't
01:44get a really good range with one by typically on the front chainring you might run something like a 38
01:4940 or 42 tooth chainring and then on the back you can get something like a 10 or 11 to
01:5542.
01:56However increasingly popular is a mullet setup so business at the front and party at the back
02:02where you have typically a gravel specific chainring setup and then mountain biking specific equipment
02:09at the back in terms of your cassette and your rear mech so that could be anything up to a
02:13huge 10 to
02:1550 tooth cassette which is phenomenal for winching up the really steep stuff. Now if you are running a
02:21cassette that large on the back with a one by setup on the front you are more likely to notice
02:26the jumps
02:27between the gears when you shift and this can affect your cadence. Now cadence is how comfortable
02:32it feels to pedal so how quickly your legs are spinning and how how easy it feels to move the
02:37bike along
02:38the trail. So with a bigger cassette all of the shifting is put at the rear which this is offset
02:43if you use a 2x chainring because the bigger jump is at the front remember that 17 tooth jump I
02:49spoke
02:49about this allows you to then have much tighter spacing on the rear cassette so you can have nice
02:55incremental gear changes of much smaller number of teeth. Now this is particularly useful if you live
03:01somewhere which isn't particularly hilly or if it is hilly they're of a consistent gradient so you don't
03:06need to be dunking loads of gears because you can just make nice little minute changes on the rear
03:11cassette and it can be much more comfortable on your legs. However if you're riding off-road and you
03:16have a 1x setup you're less likely to notice these bigger shifts in the gearing because you tend to be
03:21going a lot slower for example if you're doing a technical climb. Now what I really love about a 1x
03:32system
03:32is the simplicity of it it's simply one lever to shift up and one lever to shift down so if
03:38you're
03:38guilty of cross-chaining when on the road with a double like me it's really really easy because you
03:44don't have to worry about making sure that you're in the middle of the cassette when you change the
03:47chainring and if you're riding off-road it's just one less thing to think about and makes it super easy
03:52and simple. Now among the many other benefits of one bike it's also a bit lighter you don't need a
04:04second chainring or front mech and all the other gubbins that comes with that it's about 250 grams
04:09lighter. Yeah but how can it be that light when you're also running that much bigger cassette?
04:13Ah yeah well it's more aero. Says who you're covered in mud and you've got your bike bags on that's
04:18hardly aerodynamic. Okay well I just like how it looks. Yeah fair enough I do think it actually
04:24looks nicer than a double chainring.
04:32Now lastly comes my favourite point which is about reliability especially if you're heading out into
04:37an area such as this where you're quite remote from a good bike shop or some help and that's because
04:42you
04:42don't have a front mech on the 1x system it's just one less thing to go wrong. Now there is
04:47a
04:48minor argument to make here that a 2x system is less wearing on the parts of your drivetrain so your
04:54train is going to wear less because it's got a more efficient line and your cassette is going to wear
04:58less as a result of that but I will admit it's a minor argument when you're riding off-road and
05:04you're riding in the rain and just really muddy trails it's not going to make that much difference.
05:12So there you go the points for both 1x and 2x systems really depends on use case but obviously
05:19go for a 2x setup. Absolutely 1x. Well it looks like we're not going to come to a conclusion together
05:26so why don't you let us know in the comments section below what you think and in the meantime
05:30don't forget to like and subscribe to the Cycling Weekly YouTube channel and we'll see you again soon.
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