13 speed SRAM gravel specific electronic group set

[Smokin Joe]

It depends on where you cycle. 3 gears is enough for South Birmingham.

Try Pembrokeshire, 43 wouldn't be enough.

 

[Dogtrousers]

Is it just me or others do feel that do we actually need a 13 speed group set? It’s a good thing that Gillette stopped at 5 blade cartridges at least for the time being😂 Considering varying levels of gradient and conditions one wonders practically speaking is there actually a need for 13 speed groupset? Or maybe it’s just a ploy for companies to upsell?

It's all about the range, innit. Do you have a low enough bottom gear (most important question) and do you have a high enough top gear.

Once you've established range, then it's about gaps. Some people are really fussy and don't like big jumps, so once you have set your range, how many gears do you want in between?

13 doesn't seem outlandish.

You can get Rohloff hub gears with 14. And at the other extreme you can get hub gears with 3 or just 2.
When SRAM Apex 10 came out they emphasised the fact that worrying about cross-chaining was supposedly a thing of the past and it had 20 usable gears.
Even if you avoid cross chaining though the numbers of gears on most bikes is well in excess of 13. Of course there are overlaps and duplications as the diagrams people have been posting show, but still 13 seems not unreasonable.

I don't know what the fuss around 1x is. My first derailleur bike, in the mid 70s was 1x5. Nothing new under the sun . Of course those 5 were all close together and horribly over-geared because that was how things were done then.

 

[cyberknight]

Been commuting on 2x8 for about 15 years and dont see the need for more, couple of bikes are 2x10 but thats a luxury .I do have a 2x11 but i really dont see the benefit over the 10 .