• Thanks - the fixie thing is part of why I’m thinking 1x could work. How much of a pain is it swapping out the big ring for different kinds of riding? I could envisage running 44 up front but swapping for something smaller to ride loaded, but taking links out is a fiddly ball ache...

  • In theory long as the big sprocket and chainring add up to the same thing, and the cage is long enough, you wouldn't need to change the length of the chain right? You could do something like:

    • 48/11-32
    • 46/11-34
    • 44/11-36
    • 40/11-40
    • 38/11-42
    • 34/11-46 if you're riding up the Alps with full touring gear

    You get the idea, you just need to find two good chainring/cassette pairings.

    Bit of a faff but if you're changing the chainring it's not much harder to change the cassette at the same time.

    Having said all that I have 50/34 + 11-36 on my touring/gravel thing, covers pretty much everything but I end up cruising around cross-chained quite a lot which isn't ideal. Don't think 1× is quite right for touring personally.

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