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how much difference do clutched RDs make
All the difference. Not dropped a chain since going clutched 1x with narrow wide chainring.
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50/34 is a horrible chainring setup for cross. Big is too big, small is way too small with little chainwrap.
You could slip a 42t chainring on for racing...
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Most of the CX-oriented 2x chainsets I've seen have a 46T big ring.
Ramsaye
Howard
Emyr
@ewanmac
noob question about CX gearing...
I've so far ridden a grand total of 6 CX races (all summer events so relatively tame) and I seem to get an enormous amount of chain slap and my gears seem to jump around a lot, particularly over the bumpy sections. Indexing and drive train appear to be perfectly set up on the road but are super annoying during cross.
My guess is that this is because I'm riding my touring bike (CdF) with touring gears (50/34, 11-34 and a tiagra RD), and since I'm always in the little chainring for cross, my chain is too long.
Is this a common problem, and is there anything I can do? I guess I could try removing a link or two but then that would be annoying when the bike goes back to touring duties.
Also since I'd love to get a dedicated cross bike, how much difference do clutched RDs make in this situation? I'm looking very enviously at the riders with SRAM 1x setups.