IB14: 13 is the New 12, Phil Wood Shows off 1×13 Drivetrain

What happened to 12 speed? I keep hearing that Super Record is going 12 speed. When?

12 speed super record is supposed to be coming soon. can bike rumor clarify please?

Lars – not once you take into account the duplicated ratios in your 2×9 setup, you don’t actually have 18 usable different gears there.

Wow- a narrow range mountain 1x drivetrain! “I need that”, said nobody, ever.

i think some of you gentlemen are overlooking the fact this is clearly a test of concept, not a final product.

@craigsj the XX1 rear mech adjusts it’s upper pulley based on the amount of chain available to it, if you had a straight block of 15t cogs, it would shift right along them and the upper pulley would be lined up properly the whole time. that’s the main draw of the x-horizon parallelogram.

using this knowledge, you don’t have to limit yourself to an 11-32 range, you could have someone like OneUp build some huge cogs.

would anyone want it though? no way.

We’re going to get to the point where it takes a couple of minutes to shift from one end of the cassette to the other! At this point cramming in more sprockets creates nothing but a list of negatives with no benefit whatsoever.

I swear component engineers are determined to make me starting hating bikes. And I’m a guy that admires and often adopts true engineering advances on bicycles.

“if you had a straight block of 15t cogs, it would shift right along them and the upper pulley would be lined up properly the whole time.”

Or line up improperly the whole time. The upper pulley does not track the cog through the range, it pulls away from the smaller cogs. In the case of 15T, the upper pulley is very far away from the cogs, it would not be what you want. Sure, it would work.

“using this knowledge, you don’t have to limit yourself to an 11-32 range, you could have someone like OneUp build some huge cogs.”

That is unproven. Who has built and tested cogs larger than 42T with XX1? Where does the additional chain capacity come from? Lengthening the cage makes the upper pulley travel a shallower slope so shifting gets worse. Details get in your way.

“would anyone want it though? no way.”

Yes way. I don’t want more gears, I want more range. I’m not convinced, though, that >42T will work well. If it did I would buy it but 11 cogs is plenty. Going to 13 is worthless and limiting to < 42T adds insult to injury.

The pluses outweigh the minuses if you can get rid of the front mech and there's no reason to double/triple shift all the time because of the worthless close ratios suitable for road rather than trail. 20% steps are fine on the trail. With 11 speeds that could yield an impractical 10-62 cassette. We don't need more cogs, we need sensible spacing and mechs that work with it.

I’ve got a 1×10 with a small cog and large cog adapter to give me a 13-42 range. I love it. Shifting into the two adapter cogs works like a charm, and I have basically all the range I need for all my trails. Some people may be sad to lose the 11T cog, but pedalling on the road to my trail is not important to me, and I virtually never pedal on decents. Having more gears is not a terrible idea, but I only care if it makes my shifting better and/or gives me a wider range. That said I’m not interested in a weaker chains to get those benefits as I’m already happy with my set up. Heck, I’d go back to 1×9 if I could get the range I want. Front DRs were always a bitch on my trails with all the short steep ups and downs. I basically stopped using it cause it fucked me up so much. On big long climbs or road bikes they’re a good option, though.

@Jesse It always baffles me why people do this. An 11-36 cassette has virtually the same range as a 13-42. You didn’t add any more range than off-the-shelf 10spd, you simply shifted it lower. You could have accomplished the same thing by just going to a smaller chainring rather than creating a hodgepodge cassette. Cheaper, easier, and works better…

The pulley still moves in an arc on the horizontal plane.

Now if you wanted true horizontal movement, you would use one of those ancient chainpull derailers.

DAMN! i just went 11!

“PDXfixed is correct. This is XX1, not the typical rear derailleur. The parallelogram moves the pulleys exactly horizontal.”

It does but so what? It doesn’t mean it magically adapts to whatever you want.

If you look at the XX1 rear on the 15T cog it is quite far away. This is because the upper pulley doesn’t track the cogs at the same slope as the cogs themselves. You can make the slope steeper by making the cage shorter but then you reduce the chain capacity. Increasing the chain capacity by lengthening the cage will cause the slope to be shallower and will make shifting worse.

It is invalid to assume that the XX1 rear will simply work with larger rear cogs and greater overall range. You could lengthen the cage AND relocate the upper pulley to provide a greater rate of change but you have to keep in mind that rear suspensions have chain growth that will cause the upper pulley to move. I think the SRAM engineers know more about this that the posters here do (or the tinkerers at Phil Wood).

Why does anyone want more cogs anyway? I’d be happy with 8 or 9 as long as I could keep the 10-42. Give me a 10-50 10 speed if you can make that work. 13 cogs doesn’t solve anything.

The more gears the better. 1×11 just doesn’t have the range for me. Shimano’s 2×11 seems far more practical but I think the holy grail is still 3×9 or 3×10 (3×9 being less finicky). Yes there are duplicate gears but it’s much like Fox’s climb trail descend. Granny gear for heavy climbing, large gear for descending or smooth fire roads and the middle chainring for the other 80% of riding. The only downfall being front shifting performance but that was mostly to blame on the cheap and flexy front derailleurs low end bikes came with. When I first started riding I use to be on the 1x camp (back when people were making there own 1×9 setups) but the better and faster I became the more I realized how useful the other gears were. This is all location dependent obviously. My area is fairly diverse with a lot of ups and downs and its hot so fatigue is also a factor and extra gears make sense.

What joy to shift through 12 gears when cresting a hill.

So closely spaced. When does shifting 1 cog actually do the trick?
I want more spread on a cassette, and ~25% upshifts. 11-13-16-20-25-32-40.
Actually I tested this less the 40, and had a 33 in stead of 32. Loved it to bits.

Gets you around a course real quick. Long sections need no shifting.
Shifting is like scratching your back. If feels great but just keeps you from lapping as fast as possible.

Off and on-road, you have a singlespeed gear for each main situation. 20 for singletrack XC. 16 for commuting. 13 for tail wind. 11 for downhill and pestering a road grouppetto.
25 for lazy or steep climbing. 32 for the harder or longer stuff, 40 for Alpine grinding.

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I couldn’t agree with Cloxxki more. Want to do something amazing? Make a slick new 7-speed hub, custom spec the cogs like he had, and push the flanges out to a respectable width. Every aspect of the wheel system changes in proportion to the hub flange spacing–improving when made wider [less rim stress from lower spoke tension to achieve the desired lateral stiffness]–getting worse when they’re brought in. Yes, you could try having your cake and eating it too, by prying the chainstays farther apart… until you have to start worrying about which trees you can fit between on the trail.

Not the best use of resources.
As a proof of concept it, kind of doesn’t prove anything except that adding more gear requires a wider drop out spacing. An 8 year old could work that out on a piece of paper with crayons.

As a look-at-me publicity stunt… Well, it got me wasting time commenting on it so, I guess that’s a success(?)

Give us a full functioning 8 speed 11-13-16-20-25-30-36-42 on a 10 spd chain width and I’ll sing your praises.

“Golly gee people riding any different setup than me are just plain dumb.”

XX1 works pretty well for me and in a year or two will probably be available as X51 or something on $1000 complete bikes. But if you don’t want that keep using 3×9, 2×10, 1×10, 1×11, 2×9, nexus, rohloff, SS, 3×7, 3×8, 1×2 kickback, coaster brake, fixie, whatever. Go have fun on your bike and quit battering people on forums.

Of course that being said, I will drop you all in the pisgah on 30×10-42 while wearing a fanny pack

I run a few different drive trains including a rohloff and I do feel that we will end up 1x(whatever ) in the future. The benefit of simplicity is the decisive factor. We will also end up with Electronic shifting on all but entry level bikes. Its the future. This is not to say that you cannot have a blast on any kind of bicycle, its just that progress is tending this way.
There is a lot of great posts on this forum but I think most fears will be put to rest as material technology constantly improves.
The great thing about 1x?? is that your chain stay can be shorter with better shape. Chain suck in mud is drastically reduced.

DI2 Shimano 1×12 (9-42) with 30 front ring on a 29er is my guess.

It wont cost the earth as it will become a standard.