(2x) 12sp road gearing

[quixoticgeek]

Like Bludger says, it depends what you're doing.  For bimbling about, a 2*5 friction shift would be fine if they made it anymore.  For hitting the right gear out of a hairpin in a crit, no way.

It depends on who you are.

I get really infuriated with a lot of people talking about gearing. Yes you can ride everything fixed on a 44/18, yes many people can get away with a 53/49 and a 5 speed cassette. But just because they can, doesn't mean they should.

My bike has what many would consider outrageously low gearing. My lowest gear is a 28 front, 40 rear. At the top end my highest gear is 38 front 11 year. I don't often use that 11 tooth. In theory at 90rpm, my top speed is about 40kph. At 60 RPM, my lowest speed is about 5.5kph. I still walk up anything over about 7%. But then I'm 100kg of overweight dyke, on a steel bike with full race load.

I'm often told that a 1:1 gear is plenty for anyone to spin up hills. I disagree.

I could run a triple at the front, and a closer range at the back, but the work load of this would be a right utter pain. Currently I have di2, and it is the best upgrade I've made since the aero bars. Being able to shift from multiple locations is bloody brilliant. I don't know how I coped without it. I have syncro shift setup, so in effect I actually have a 1x13, as once it gets to 38:40, it changes to 28:35, then 28:38. In the reverse direction the change over is at 28:27.

That said, I'd love it if there was a 20t between the 19 and the 21. Would make my cadence a lot nicer around that point.

J

[Brucey]

I get really infuriated with a lot of people talking about gearing.

the OP has said what gearing they need, and most of this thread is about ways of getting that gearing, isn't it?

No need to get infuriated?

cheers

[Brucey]

Using modern equipment this also isn't a straightforward OTP option, but you can use a ST-4703 LH shifter which is a good match for most of the current 11s RH shifters, and whatever chainset that floats your boat and will accept three chainrings.  In fact using an 11s 11-28 or 11-30  cassette you will get a better gear progression than any other on the two big rings and still have low gears for climbing.  Unless you go silly with chainring sizes it will all work nicely with a variety of RDs.   What's not to like?

it's a bit like wearing a brown shoe on the left foot and black one on the right.

and what is wrong with that...?...

FWIW the hoods are the same part as 4700 ones in several 11s shifters, the trim pieces are slightly different but could probably be adapted, and I think the lever blades swap over more easily than that. So it might not be too bad if you wanted the shifters to look identical to one another.

cheers

[rr]

(my late night musings)

having mainly ridden on 10 and 9 speed gears i've never felt the need to move to 11sp  so far.

however, looking at the 11-34* 12sp cassette it suddenly seems like a versatile and attractive one-size-fits-all solution for a road bike, with small gaps and wide range.

for speed oriented riders it would work great with 52/36 chainset, from racing on the flat roads to riding in the mountains.

for more relaxed riders 46/30 would provide all the range and gears they need, in fact this setup would suit 90% of all cyclists both for road and gravel riding.

a new dura ace 12sp groupset should be released this year, but i'm looking forward to this system at 105/ultegra/(grx) levels and made for the regular hyperglide freehubs (i don't want to see micro spline appearing on road groupsets and no silly 10t sprocket either, please).

does anyone else think 12sp is a good idea?


*11-12-13-15-17-19-21-23-25-28-31-34 looks like the optimal spread, but so far available only from far-eastern no name outfits..

I mostly agree, although I think I would lose the 11 and use the extra gear to take the biggest sprocket to 36 and shuffle the rest of the large sprockets a bit closer together.

Sent from my moto x4 using Tapatalk

[FifeingEejit]

You can buy 11 speed* 11-34 cassettes. I don’t know what going up to 12 speed makes them suddenly special?

(and 10 speed and 9 speed and ...)

I've got one, I can't day I find the bigger jumps higher up the cassette to be troubling and IIRC it's the same as the 11-30 once you get past the 25t
But then I can't say it's particularly helped me get up hills more either, but then I didn't intend to do next to bugger all riding all winter or be generally ill and for my cadence range to stay the same narrowness but drop by 10rpm  .

[rob]

I've just started using gears for the first time in 10 years.   It's really complicated.....and expensive.....50 bloody quid for an Ultegra cassette.

[grams]

it's a bit like wearing a brown shoe on the left foot and black one on the right.

I have this setup the 5800 and 4703 levers are *identical* apart from the name badge and the Tiagra lever blade is very dark blue rather than black. You can even install a 105 badge if you’re feeling self conscious.

yebbut the cable errors are essentially pro-rata with the cable pull, so everything stays in proportion.

So I have an old 5 speed friction shift bike. I can stick the lever basically anywhere and it’ll work ok - it doesn’t matter if the mech isn’t quite in line with the sprocket, because the other dogs are relatively far away. If you did that on an 11 speed it wouldn’t work - you’d have to be dead on. Increasing the shift ratio doesn’t increase the accuracy.

This beats the hell out of struggling to find the (if not now soon to be obsolete and frighteningly expensive) Di2 mech or whatever.

That’s not how the secondhand  market currently looks - older Di2 gear is getting very cheap, despite being forward and backward compatible. Maybe it’ll be different if you’re trying to keep a vintage Di2 bike on the road in 20 years time, but even then I reckon there’ll be a ready supply of parts from old bikes.

[S2L]

I've just started using gears for the first time in 10 years.   It's really complicated.....and expensive.....50 bloody quid for an Ultegra cassette.

Us scavengers are stuck with 9-10 speed systems and lower end components... in the Tiagra range, cassettes can be had for £ 20 and a chain is typically £ 12-15

[zigzag]

It'll be interesting to see if this arrangement finds favour or not;

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0293/0209/5971/files/034-035_MBAa20_1.pdf?127

which is either the best or the worst of both worlds depending on how you look at it.

this looks a bit bodgey or a prototype-like, but some further development i can see it working in certain scenarios. xshifter was promising a similar solution before it turned into a scam.

[Kim]

^^^. Whs.  I've upgraded Olive, from 10 sp to ........7 sp x3 (13-28). Super gear range for me , with a 46,36,26.  Friction levers, simplicity itself.

I run 3 x 9 speed on recumbent with friction bar ends. Originally I ran the rear indexed. I have a 10 speed turbo wheel so was frequently changing the lever between index and friction. But I just left it on friction one day and have decided I prefer it that way. Easy to change gear and muscle memory seems to dictate you shift it just the right amount each time. Plus of course I can have whatever speed I want on the back without needing any further adjustments

I think it was cycleman OTP who showed me that friction shifting works surprisingly well with 9+speed cassettes.  There's hysteresis, but it's surprisingly difficult to find a between-the-gears position.  Works better than 5/6 speed in that respect.

[sojournermike]

I’m currently riding - GF Ti 2 with guards, dynamo and rack, 50/34 with a 13-32 (13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 21,23, 26, 29, 32). That covers pretty well everything I need with a rack pack on. In the summer, if I’m fitter, I’ll ride a lighter bike with 52/36 and, preferably, 12-28, also 11 speed.

I also haves 2x10 setup with 50/34 and 13, 15, 17, 19, 21, 24, 28, 32, 36, 40. It’s a bit happy, but fine for long mixed days or carrying stuff.

Do I need 12, no. But I’m sure I’d find a way to use it...

[Brucey]

yebbut the cable errors are essentially pro-rata with the cable pull, so everything stays in proportion.

So I have an old 5 speed friction shift bike. I can stick the lever basically anywhere and it’ll work ok - it doesn’t matter if the mech isn’t quite in line with the sprocket, because the other dogs are relatively far away. If you did that on an 11 speed it wouldn’t work - you’d have to be dead on. Increasing the shift ratio doesn’t increase the accuracy.

  IIRC the point you made was that you thought 'only Di2 would work on 12 sprockets or more'. Well believe it or not the magic of Di2 does not extend so far as to render the system immune to alignment errors etc.  In fact the tolerances may need to be better with Di2 because a bloke with a gear lever will just overshift until the shift goes in but the Di2 system can't really tell if it has gone in or, er, into the rear wheel.

When cables are in good nick and the shift ratio is correct etc, the RD is positioned with a repeatability of about +/- 0.1mm or less. This can be made even smaller by changing the shift ratio. Once a derailleur system has been in use for any length of time, the 'cable errors' are usually the least of your worries, and 'everything else' applies to any system regardless of how the mech is moved.

This beats the hell out of struggling to find the (if not now soon to be obsolete and frighteningly expensive) Di2 mech or whatever.

That’s not how the secondhand  market currently looks - older Di2 gear is getting very cheap, despite being forward and backward compatible. Maybe it’ll be different if you’re trying to keep a vintage Di2 bike on the road in 20 years time, but even then I reckon there’ll be a ready supply of parts from old bikes.

well I don't carry a spare mech with me on a weekend away and I don't know anyone who does.  However with a very commonly used system, or one with a friction/reprogrammable mode, I can be pretty certain of fixing a RD problem in pretty much any bike shop.   Needless to say waiting for some toerag to send me some half baked piece of old crap from ebay doesn't really compare.

  FYI some spare parts for Ultegra 10s Di2 (such as FDs) went NLA about a year after the system was current, and they are compatible with nothing else. Shimano's 'repair' was to buy most of a new system to go with a 11s front mech....   more recent system compatibility is better than that, but then again it could hardly be worse....

cheers

[zigzag]

performance of 12sp shifting stays fine, even when bikepacking or mtb'ing in dusty/muddy conditions. my friends did some mighty mtb challenges/races and  the gears just worked as expected. on road it's even less of a concern.

[Brucey]

Re friction shifting on modern systems. Yup it works better than you might expect.  However with a few tweaks it can be better than that.

For example If you combine

- 10s cassette and
- 10s Dynasys RD and
- SunRace  LH thumbshifter or Bar End shifter

then something interesting happens. The Sun Race LH shifter (which is the best of a pretty poor bunch BTW)  has a powershift type ratchet in it, but with rather coarse clicks.  It happens that the cable pull per click is such that two clicks corresponds almost exactly to one downshift.

So just when you need it most, e.g. when climbing, you can make semi-indexed downshifts with little or no trimming required. Nice, huh?

cheers

[Frank9755]

I guess as we get to more and more gears - 20, 30, etc with no space between them - the need to index will go away as you will just shift it up or down by a bit, using a nice friction shifter.  Indexing will have been seen to have been a short term diversion in the development of the friction shifter!

Of course we will need to move to chains with much smaller links to accomodate all the teeth that the 30sp cassettes will give us.

[FifeingEejit]

I guess as we get to more and more gears - 20, 30, etc with no space between them - the need to index will go away as you will just shift it up or down by a bit, using a nice friction shifter.  Indexing will have been seen to have been a short term diversion in the development of the friction shifter!

Of course we will need to move to chains with much smaller links to accomodate all the teeth that the 30sp cassettes will give us.

Nah, I reckon SRAM will come up with fantastic new device so they don't need to make their cassettes any bigger.

[hubner]

I started on 6 speed freewheels and that's what I've been using ever since. I've never even used or bought cassettes.

My "main" bike is 1 x 5 and the smallest sprocket is unusable because it is too near the dropout (to get minimum dish). The teeth on plastic jockey wheels have completely worn away and it still works, the only maintenance I do (apart from wiping down the chain) is occasionally re-tighten the downtube friction gear lever as it seems to work loose, I think I used grease on the threads when I shouldn't have.

[zigzag]

I started on 6 speed freewheels and that's what I've been using ever since. I've never even used or bought cassettes.

My "main" bike is 1 x 5 and the smallest sprocket is unusable because it is too near the dropout (to get minimum dish). The teeth on plastic jockey wheels have completely worn away and it still works, the only maintenance I do (apart from wiping down the chain) is occasionally re-tighten the downtube friction gear lever as it seems to work loose, I think I used grease on the threads when I shouldn't have.

for flat terrain that's fine, even single speed/fixed works great, i've used 5sp freewheel on my hack/commuter "steel racer" for few months before converting it to ss.  i've also tried downtube levers 12 years ago (to satisfy my curiosity), didn't get on with them, personally. well maintained bike makes a better riding experience.

sometimes change and progress can be a good thing.

[Hot Flatus]

You'll always get the luddites. It's a sort of bigotry. They think they know best, and everything modern is just an attempt to get money out of your pockets for things you dont need, because you are, of course, a feckless idiot who cannot think for himself.

Usually, they have never even used the equipment they criticise, but of course they still know more about it than you 

12sp. Surely this will be the last iteration of cassette size. The next change in gearing, I predict, will see the end of the derailleur.

[LMT]

You'll always get the luddites. It's a sort of bigotry. They think they know best, and everything modern is just an attempt to get money out of your pockets for things you dont need, because you are, of course, a feckless idiot who cannot think for himself.

Usually, they have never even used the equipment they criticise, but of course they still know more about it than you 

12sp. Surely this will be the last iteration of cassette size. The next change in gearing, I predict, will see the end of the derailleur.

Nope, you can get 1x13.

[Hot Flatus]

Rotor do one....in theory.

[Brucey]

I guess as we get to more and more gears - 20, 30, etc with no space between them - the need to index will go away as you will just shift it up or down by a bit, using a nice friction shifter.  Indexing will have been seen to have been a short term diversion in the development of the friction shifter!

Of course we will need to move to chains with much smaller links to accomodate all the teeth that the 30sp cassettes will give us.

Nah, I reckon SRAM will come up with fantastic new device so they don't need to make their cassettes any bigger.

using my crystal ball (the painful one) I predict this fantastic development will be called something like, something like, something like, er, um,

'the front derailleur'....

does this mean anything to anyone...?

cheers

[sojournermike]

I guess as we get to more and more gears - 20, 30, etc with no space between them - the need to index will go away as you will just shift it up or down by a bit, using a nice friction shifter.  Indexing will have been seen to have been a short term diversion in the development of the friction shifter!

Of course we will need to move to chains with much smaller links to accomodate all the teeth that the 30sp cassettes will give us.

Perhaps the triple front derailleur - as sram seem to like giving people low gears before Shimano

Nah, I reckon SRAM will come up with fantastic new device so they don't need to make their cassettes any bigger.

using my crystal ball (the painful one) I predict this fantastic development will be called something like, something like, something like, er, um,

'the front derailleur'....

does this mean anything to anyone...?

cheers

[mzjo]

(my late night musings)

having mainly ridden on 10 and 9 speed gears i've never felt the need to move to 11sp  so far.

however, looking at the 11-34* 12sp cassette it suddenly seems like a versatile and attractive one-size-fits-all solution for a road bike, with small gaps and wide range.

for speed oriented riders it would work great with 52/36 chainset, from racing on the flat roads to riding in the mountains.

for more relaxed riders 46/30 would provide all the range and gears they need, in fact this setup would suit 90% of all cyclists both for road and gravel riding.

a new dura ace 12sp groupset should be released this year, but i'm looking forward to this system at 105/ultegra/(grx) levels and made for the regular hyperglide freehubs (i don't want to see micro spline appearing on road groupsets and no silly 10t sprocket either, please).

does anyone else think 12sp is a good idea?


*11-12-13-15-17-19-21-23-25-28-31-34 looks like the optimal spread, but so far available only from far-eastern no name outfits..

For me there are too many sprockets. I would like the 11-34 range but my choice would go 11-13-15-17-19-21-24-28-34, or possibly swap the 11t for a 12t. Even with my 11-30 8sp I find I frequently jump down two cogs at a time, although I generally go back up one at a time (unless I going up a mountain when going down the other side can mean going from bottom straight to top).

I did try a 46-30 ring set-up for a while. I didn't get on with it and ended up putting a 34t ring in between the other two. I now have 46-34-28 on that bike with indexed dt shifters which I find very nice. (Mind I have a second bike with the same 11-30 cassette, still a triple, but friction dt shifters and that works pretty well as well. I used to not like 8sp friction bar-ends but I have since changed my opinions on friction. Must try 9 and 10 some day on friction, see if I can still count to ten). No shifters on the brake levers, arthritis in the thumbs makes it too uncomfortable.

[joy of essex]

A recent Bike Quarterly blog argued that cable based indexing had reached its  technical limits. Jan suggested the future was electric or back to  friction.