- News
- Reviews
- Bikes
- Accessories
- Accessories - misc
- Computer mounts
- Bags
- Bar ends
- Bike bags & cases
- Bottle cages
- Bottles
- Cameras
- Car racks
- Child seats
- Computers
- Glasses
- GPS units
- Helmets
- Lights - front
- Lights - rear
- Lights - sets
- Locks
- Mirrors
- Mudguards
- Racks
- Pumps & CO2 inflators
- Puncture kits
- Reflectives
- Smart watches
- Stands and racks
- Trailers
- Clothing
- Components
- Bar tape & grips
- Bottom brackets
- Brake & gear cables
- Brake & STI levers
- Brake pads & spares
- Brakes
- Cassettes & freewheels
- Chains
- Chainsets & chainrings
- Derailleurs - front
- Derailleurs - rear
- Forks
- Gear levers & shifters
- Groupsets
- Handlebars & extensions
- Headsets
- Hubs
- Inner tubes
- Pedals
- Quick releases & skewers
- Saddles
- Seatposts
- Stems
- Wheels
- Tyres
- Health, fitness and nutrition
- Tools and workshop
- Miscellaneous
- Buyers Guides
- Features
- Forum
- Recommends
- Podcast
Is the front mech dead Sept 2018Is the front mech dying? Is there a future for the front derailleur on modern road bikes?
First published November 4, 2017
With more and more sprockets on our wheels, do we still need two chainrings up front? We take a deep dive into the pros and cons of 1X gearing.
The drivetrain on a modern road bike has evolved loads since the early days when you turned a lever to move the chain to a different sprocket. Electronics are now commonplace and cassettes with ever-wider ranges provide enough gears to tackle even the steepest mountain climbs.
Most modern road bikes use two derailleurs to move the chain across the cassette and chainset, and it works well thanks to many years of product development. We probably take them for granted. But there's a move in some parts of the cycling world to simplify the drivetrain and it threatens the future existence of the front derailleur.
The arrival of SRAM’s 1x11 drivetrain a few years ago, a gear system that ditched the front mech and instead combined a single chainring with a wide-range cassette, provided another path. Such drivetrains have become hugely popular on mountain bikes and we've seen cyclocross and gravel bikes also being specced with single chainsets in recent years. Could the same happen to road bikes?
What are the benefits of 1X gearing?
The simplicity is certainly appealing. With just one shifter, changing gear is much more intuitive than having to manage the front and rear derailleurs. For beginners, that's an obvious benefit. There’s one less component to fail as well (though front derailleur failures are rare) and on bikes designed for wider tyres, removing the front derailleur can provide additional clearance around the rear wheel and seat tube area.
Read more: Beginner's guide: understanding gears
A short history of the front derailleur
Early users of double chainsets didn't even bother with front derailleurs; they pushed the chain from the large to small chainring with their heels at the bottom of a long climb, then stopped at the top of the hill to manually lift it back to the big ring. In the 1930s, French cycle tourists began using mechanisms to move the chain, as they realised being able to change gears was useful on the flat as well as when you had a long climb ahead.
Front derailleurs of the 1930s were usually actuated by cables; rod-operated front derailleurs appeared in the 1940s, and provided very quick and efficient shifts. You had to reach down towards the bottom bracket to operate them, which looks awkward to modern riders who are used to brake/shift levers, but was reportedly quite straightforward.
Read more: First Ride: SRAM 1x Road
Since then, the front derailleur really hasn't changed much at all. It's still a basic component, comprising two metal plates that shove the chain across the chainrings, and the stiffer those plates the better the shifting. But making plates stiffer by making them thicker also adds weight, so gear makers have added ramps and pins to the chainrings, bringing a real improvement in front shifting performance. The biggest recent development has been the addition of a motor in the electronic systems made by Shimano, Campagnolo, SRAM and FSA.
The 1x charge – the industry speaks
But the cycle industry is in a great period of technological development at the moment and everything is up for change. Chainsets have evolved from triples to doubles over the years with loads of configurations available, but a definite trend towards lower ratio setups like a compact, semi-compact and most recently, sub-compact. So if lower gears are popular, why not go all the way and use a smaller single ring?
For mountain biking, a single ring chainset makes a lot of sense. Changing gears is easier with just one gear shifter, there's one less thing to malfunction, mud and ground clearance is improved, weight is lowered and suspension designers are freed from the limitations of having to factor in a front derailleur when locating pivots. And any loss in gear range is compensated for by a wide-range cassette, with SRAM’s introduction of a 10-42t cassette and more recently 10-50t with its 12-speed Eagle groupset.
SRAM has been instrumental in the popularity of single ring drivetrains, but SRAM’s Global Drivetrain Category Manager Ron Ritzler doesn’t think fans of the front derailleur need to worry just yet.
"Will the front derailleur disappear? Probably not yet as there are certain users, like some elite athletes, who need the range and the steps to perform at their best – but can it kill the front derailleur for users who spend their time in cyclocross, commuting, adventure riding and in events where fast precise single ring performance is preferred; heck yes,” he tells us.
“We still make front derailleur and 2x rings that work really perfectly, but we love the fact that there are some many people using road bikes in new ways that make 1x the right choice."
While SRAM has been cheerleading the benefits of single ring drivetrains, Shimano isn’t really embracing it. Shimano’s Ben Hillsdon says the versatility of the double ring setup is just too good to ignore.
“Essentially the front derailleur doubles the number of gear ratios available to a rider, and, therefore, gives riders smaller steps in shifting between their biggest gear and their lowest gear,” he says. “That means riders have a wider range of gears, a smoother pedalling experience and their cadence (ie leg speed) can stay constant.
“That, in turn, brings a physiological benefit as muscles and joints are saved from being overworked, which can be crucial when it comes down to the sharp end of a race. The versatility of a double-ring setup is that you can go anywhere without compromise. However, for those riders choosing simplicity, our strategy is to offer drivetrains that can be set up in many different ways for different styles of riding.”
Read more: Your complete guide to SRAM road bike groupsets
Since we spoke to Ben Hillsdon, Shimano has backtracked a little though, introducing 1X options in the GRX range of gravel bike components. Okay, a gravel bike isn't a road bike, but there's no reason you couldn't use a gravel bike transmission on a road bike as long as you can get a top gear high enough for mountain descents and sprint finishes.
In fact, that's exactly what 3T have done with their Strada road bike, which now comes in a version with Campagnolo's 1X13 Ekar components. Ekar is intended for gravel bikes, but 3T clearly don't believe in discipline boundaries, and who's to say they're wrong?
But a front derailleur gives you more gears, right?
One of the biggest advantages of the front derailleur was a big increase in the range of gears. That was an obvious advantage with a 5-speed cassette many decades ago. Over the years, the number of sprockets on the cassette has increased and is now up to 11, 12 or even 13.
Not only has the sprocket number increased, but the size of the sprockets has gone up: most racers predominantly used 12-23 cassettes a few years ago, but 11-30 is now common in the pro peloton and many sportive bikes now come with 11-34 cassettes.
Of course, removing one of the chainrings reduces your available range so to combat this SRAM introduced a whopping 10-42 cassette. It was instrumental in winning over mountain bikers as it was possible for a single ring drivetrain to offer nearly the same gear range as a conventional compact drivetrain.
Read more: SRAM Rival 1 review
How does a single ring drivetrain compare to a conventional drivetrain? Favourably, if you look at the numbers. Combine a 44-tooth single chainring with an 11-36 cassette and you have a gear range from 33 to 108 inches. That’s very nearly the same as the 32.8 to 122.7 range that a 50/34 and 11-28 setup provides, a setup many riders still use, though the latest off-the-peg bikes tend to have an 11-32 or 11-34 cassette.
You can adjust the size of the chainring and the cassette to tailor that gear range to suit the geography of your local terrain and riding style, whether solo touring rides or racing, much like you modify a current drivetrain with different chainsets and cassettes depending on whether you want top-end for racing or low-end for riding in the mountains.
While the gear range compares favourably, where the 1x setup falls short is in the jumps between the gears. This will concern those cyclists who like to be in the perfect gear for the optimum cadence at all times. How big a concern the larger jumps between gears will be to you depends largely on the type of cyclist you are, the sort of riding you do and your terrain. There is much work being done to provide cassettes that can help smooth the transition in the most frequently used gears, with 3T's Gerard Vroomen developing two versions of a 9-32t cassette that looks to be a good choice.
So should you ditch the front derailleur?
That depends. There are clear advantages and disadvantages to a 1X drivetrain at present. It’s unlikely we’ll see the front derailleur confined to the history books anytime soon, especially given Shimano’s dominant position in the market. That'll certainly be the case for regular road bikes and especially race bikes where tradition rules.
Where we're seeing single ring drivetrains really start to become a lot more popular is on bikes where the disadvantages are outweighed by the advantages offered by a simplified drivetrain, where the ultimate range isn't as critical and where the bigger jumps aren't as much of an issue.
Read more: Will your next bike be a gravel bike?
We’re talking about cyclocross bikes (where many racers have been going single ring for many years already with home-brewed solutions) and the gravel and adventure bike category where 1X is as common a transmission option as 2X. But with the likes of the 3T Strada and Whyte Wessex One, two road bikes designed around 1x11 drivetrains, we could be looking at more road bikes devoid of front derailleurs in the future.
Ultimately, though, the modern double-chainring transmission is too good for many cyclists to want to make a radical change. But the rise of wide-range cassettes does provide an interesting alternative that will appeal to many cyclists, which means we might see a few less front derailleurs on road bikes in the future.
Do you ride a bike with a single ring drivetrain?
David worked on the road.cc tech team from 2012-2020. Previously he was editor of Bikemagic.com and before that staff writer at RCUK. He's a seasoned cyclist of all disciplines, from road to mountain biking, touring to cyclo-cross, he only wishes he had time to ride them all. He's mildly competitive, though he'll never admit it, and is a frequent road racer but is too lazy to do really well. He currently resides in the Cotswolds, and you can now find him over on his own YouTube channel David Arthur - Just Ride Bikes.
Latest Comments
- Daclu Trelub 11 hours 2 min ago
A bit like underarm, surely?
- hand0j1n 12 hours 17 min ago
Hopefully the new device is a big success, but wahoo do have a lot work to do in terms of convincing that their quality control has improved. ...
- chrisonabike 11 hours 7 min ago
Agree that the moaning comes from a place of priveledge and ultimately "if only there weren't so many other people driving"....
- Simon E 12 hours 52 min ago
Have added some clarification....
- Simon E 13 hours 2 min ago
I was tempted to try Galibier gloves but opted for Endura Freezing Point from LBS last year. Not cheap (£60, I think). I'd prefer a shorter cuff...
- Simon E 13 hours 40 min ago
I can't wait that long! Here's a series that any good vlogger / 'grammer would surely recognise....
- Simon E 13 hours 48 min ago
At 2.30pm on Saturday a small hatchback car "came to rest on its side in a precarious position" near the hamlet of Ratlinghope on the west side of...
- IanMK 14 hours 25 min ago
I do wonder if Highway Planners and Councils understand all the implications of putting in traffic calming measures. They certainly take no...
- Oldfatgit 14 hours 45 min ago
How long before some waste of DNA complains about them on the footpath ... or for Grimsby [and the other shit-tips] to ban them ...
Add new comment
125 comments
Having big jumps in any cycling where you could be on the edge, tired or heavily loaded is not good news, being able to maintain your preferred cadence more readily when changing terrain and/ot speed is pretty much essential no matter what discipline you do including commuting or utility cycling.
Losing the front derailleur to have a lesser efficient/less optimal and less variable set up is just dumb, but the big manufacturers want this so they can save more money whilst chrging punters same rice for less.
I'm also a big fan of the triple.
It does everything! High gear-low gear-perfect cadence-yep!
Adds negligible weight.
I use Campagnolo shifters so trimming the FD to prevent chain rub also a doddle.
Vive Le Triple!!!!
Right. And my interests in gear follow what Pros and other die-hards (as I used to be, so long ago) want to ride. Not the industry's, or their marketing tools, cycling publications', interest in promoting. So far they've not taken to disc brakes, tubeless tires or single chainrings, and I'll continue to ride caliper brakes, tubular tires and double chainrings. There's a lot to be said for established technology and I've no interest in fiddling with poorly thought out tech when I just want to ride the bike.
The first and last front mech I ever had fail was a Campag Neuvo Record in 1980 - it was so rare that my LCS replaced it and sent the broken (the 'band' broke) back to Italy for examination
Good on you! Keep doing it! At your age (81 when you originally posted a year or so ago) there's no point in sitting around practising to be dead. That'll happen soon enough. I'm 71 and still go unsupported bike camping/touring. I had a bloke in a caravan park telling me that he couldn't do it because he was 61. When I told him how old I was his chin dropped and he walked away.
thats exactly what it is , and it’s great , ticks lots of boxes . Light and fast both on and off road, climbs very well out of the saddle . I’ve hardly touched my road bike since putting the conti 28mms on. Plenty of clearance for the new breed of ‘gravel tyres’ too.
You need to get some experience.
Get a bike loaded to a total riding weight of, say, 115kg, ride it 20 miles up a mountain pass over 3500m, ride fast down the other side then tell us there's no need for a front derailleur.
Changing a chainring out in the wilds is not something I would like to attempt, chainring bolts can be a bit fiddly, for me always better to remove the chainset to chainge the ring. You probably would want to remove links on the chain too.
The alloy bolts on my XTR almost want to cross thread.
Start at the 44.
I'm similar. I was all for 1x set ups, and I still am, but it's not for me. A few years ago I had pains in the knee, after physio, and advice from the Dr, who was a cyclist, he suggested a much higher cadence. And that, for me, is were 1x is no good. There is too big a jump between certain gears. Having had a CX bike, and a MTB with 1x it's not as bad off road as speeds are usually lower - but in the end I decided that 2x was the way to go.
It's all about personal choice, and your riding characteristics; however, I do have one complaint. I do feel the manufacturers are giving us limited choice when to come to CX/ Gravel bikes; they mostly seem to be 1x. I've been looking at getting a new winter/cx/gravel bike - and all the ones I like are 1x.....
In the end, I've decided to buy a bike that has 1x, but will change it to a 2x - but it shouldn't be like this.
You seem to have thrown your grammar out with the chain ring
"My prediction is [that] we roadies will get there in the end..." - the main clause is 'we will get there', not 'us will get there'.
I'llhang onto my three ring 84 FUJI for awhile ...thank you
I'llhang onto my thre ring 84 FUJI for awhile ...thank you
I'llhang onto my thre ring 84 FUJI for awhile ...thank you
I'llhang onto my thre ring 84 FUJI for awhile ...thank you
Can't see this being practical for professional events like the Tour. Sprinters need the biggest gears but still have to get through the mountains in lower gears than overall GC contenders.
Then there's the teams invited to these events that aren't contenders for any of the jerseys. They will struggle through the mountains without the lower gears.
The alternative isn't practical either, switching bikes mid-stage for the mountain sections.
(Anyway I can't complain, I live in Peterborough and can't remember when I last changed gear!)
Yes, the bike I saw and shot for Instagram last night at the Rouleur Classic show was a mockup by Saddleback, the UK distributor for 3T.
The actual bike was unveiled today, and there's a story on the homepage of this site (here's a link http://road.cc/content/tech-news/231711-aqua-blue-sports-3t-strada-2018-...)
They've gone with SRAM Force groupset with 3T supplying the wheels, finishing kit and THM cranks because 3T owns THM
Ok so the above video was just showing off the new paint scheme.
AquaBlue have launched their 3T Strada team edition and its running Sram Force 1x. Looks like they've gone with a biggish front chairing, probably a 50t and the cassette isn't a big dinner plate on the back which probably means its smallest gear is a 36t and 10t top gear.
23101882_526957917643637_7606766232338956288_n.jpg
One other note of caution, and someone else here alluded to it, is actual cassette weight. The idea of 1x roadbike is great but the cassettes will have to get lighter. My boardman cx came with a 10-42 xd driver cassette, and it weighed pretty much half a kilo on its own. It massively affected the way the bike felt.
Isn't the "it's expensive" issue mainly just that at the moment it's only available in high end groupsets? I've not looked, but at the same groupset level, is a 1X more expensive than the equivalent 2X?
Living in the flatlands of Bedfordshire - I generally use a 50/34 - 12-23.
95-99% of the time this functions very well as a 1X set with minimal jumps between ratios .......but I then have the benefit of the 34 as a bail out.
If I lived in a part of the country that had different terrain I'd be using a different set of ratios - wheter or not they could be prvided by a 1x set up would depend on the terain.
I suspect that it's best suited to an area that's either (steeply) 'Weeee!' Up or 'puff-puff-pant' Down.
(and - as an aside.... <rant> why does no one ever seem to mention the sprockets between the extreams? It may be an 11-28 block or a 12-25..... but you might well find that the ratio you need for most of your ridding can only be found on a 17 tooth cog which sits on neither of those blocks </rant>)
I see Aquablue have released image/videos of the 3t Strada Team Ed bike.
Video is courtesy of Road.cc on instagram.
Didn't think Aquablue would be using shimano on the 3t Strada. Looks like a 50t chaniring and the cassette looks relatively standard size wise, no massive dinner plate bailout cog on inside. Probably 3T's bailout 9-36 cassette. The long cage ultegra Di2 GS rear mech has max capacity of 32t so possibly using shimano XTR di2 rear mech which has a clutch for added extra security on single ring setup.
23225362_1996965350548976_4293383810277441536_n.mp4
Did anyone mention that the cost of a cassette is roughly the cost of a 105 groupset yet? And all the weight shifts to ge back axle
The Sram XD cassettes are rediculously expensive. But the there are options which are much better value in 11spd standard non XD cassettes. A 52 chainring with an 11-40 cassette give a very decent gear range. There are 11-40 cassette from shimano (XT CS-M8000) which are no more expensive than ultegra stuff and sunrace offer and 11spd m8 11-40 cassette that can be had for less money than 105 cassettes. THe sunrace cassettes are also lighter than the shimano ones by about 20g or so. You don't have to have a clutch mech for road use, a lindarets roadlink and a a short cage road mech will allow you to use an 11-40 cassette. If you have issues with chain retention when used with a narrow wide chainring, its possible to change the cage spring tension in shimano mechs, the mech ships from the factory in the low tension setting.
My M8000 11-40 is actually lighter than the stock 105 11-32 it replaced. Interesting stuff on the spring tension, never came up in my research. Hey ho the clutch mech is awesome.
@ChetManley are you running the m8000 11-40 on a road bike? How do you find it
I'm considering trying it myself. I had 11-36 on a 10spd setup so i am used to larger ratio jumps between gears and the additional sprocket on the back would be nice on the 11spd setup I have now.
Sorry but that's cobblers, XT 11-40 is 411g, 105 11-32 is 320g! and £20 cheaper.
Having ridden 1x on my 2nd/winter bike for 2yrs, Its takes a bit of working out to get the ratios correct. I had a 10spd 52t chainring 11-36 cassette. It was perfect in terms of range for my requirements. Personally it workd very well for me,
Regarding pro's and big jumps in ratios, a sram setup with 48 chainring and 10-36 cassette (Sram XDr freehub) will give you almost identical overall range as a standard pro 53/39 11/28 setup. If sram introduce 12spd eagle tech to the road then the additional cog will further help the jumps between ratios. Its worth remembering that there is alot of overlap on a 2 x 11 setup which effectively leaves you 16 or 18 different gears. See gear ratios in image attached, these are ratios gear inches / metres of development as your tyre size effects the that figure.
Saying that the front mech will not die off completely, there will always be traditionalists and others who want to try different or new/updated technologies.
1x ratios.png
The problem with 1X is that it is usually...more expensive than 2X and 2X usually ...more expensive than 3X.
The problem with road groupsets is the HUGE cost of brifters, especially now that hydraulic brakes are part of the game. If we could ditch one of the brifters and the front mech, the cost would be greatly reduced but it simply isn't happening.
Apart from the cost that doesn't gets reduced as it should, from 1X I would only be afraid about crosschaining and the watts that it costs. If we can see one day a road groupset 1X10 with a hollow crank at sub-Sora price with crosschaining that cannot be felt I would go for it...
...but until then I will be super happy with my Sora really, it works great for my commuting and touring needs. If you have lived with friction shifters or single speed, basic Shimano is just great.
I found myself riding a 1x9 off road for a while: what i found was i ran out of gears, a lot, and would find myself only having 1 gear i could use at the end of the range, and found myself in the middle of the block for the rest of the time. so i lost a lot of gears somewhere, and was wearing chains at an amazing rate.
so, faster chain wear, faster sprocket wear, less gears. not a system ill be using again. its a gimmick
It doesn't have to be "all-or-nothing" as the article title might imply. For some, the large jumps in gears will be okay, and they can have 1x; for those that prefer smoother transitions, they can stay with a front mech.
As far as the weight savings, aerodynamics, how much can be saved?? One watt? Two? For 99% of us, it won't make that much difference. Pros will like it, as will their machanics.
The question might be - will the industry still offer front mechs, or will everybody be forced to 1x?
Pages