Anyone converted from 2x11 to a 1x12?

[Sloth]

Thanks for all the helpful advice guys, and sorry for not replying sooner but I’ve kind of been away for a while with work.
Anyway I will try to digest all the above but anything that makes hills harder is out to be honest, so I need a solution that solves the front mech faff without losing the easiest gears for hills.
Meanwhile I suppose I will start stocking up the bike mod ‘war chest’.

 

[Gunk]

My LBS has said they could perhaps do it for around £400-£500 but it depends on what set up I want.

That sounds like a very minimal gain for a shed load of money.

 

[Jameshow]

36 -42 is probably the best you'll be looking it.
Decent low down gearing whilst still be able to push 20mph on 36-11??

 

[Dogtrousers]

Good point.
I hear that 13 speed cassettes are now out, albeit not on many set ups yet.

I shudder to think of all the bad luck they would bring.

 

[Dogtrousers]

You’d think wouldn’t you? Yet it does happen.

If you're getting cross-chaining-like noises from the rear mech while in small (front) and big (rear) then it's not cross chaining, it's something else.

I had similar recently and it was due to my rear mech sitting too close to the teeth of the rear sprocket. So when I changed into bottom gear it chattered a bit and was reluctant to change up again. I tightened the "B-screw" so the mech was sitting a bit lower and all was well. What puzzled me was why this happened. It had been fine for about a year, and I've never touched the B screw before.

 

[Dogtrousers]

Thanks for all the helpful advice guys, and sorry for not replying sooner but I’ve kind of been away for a while with work.
Anyway I will try to digest all the above but anything that makes hills harder is out to be honest, so I need a solution that solves the front mech faff without losing the easiest gears for hills.
Meanwhile I suppose I will start stocking up the bike mod ‘war chest’.

Another approach would be to address this via a software upgrade rather than through hardware.

By which I mean persevere with the 2x until front changing ceases to be a faff and becomes second nature and your mental software becomes 2x compatible.

 

[Sloth]

Another approach would be to address this via a software upgrade rather than through hardware.

By which mean persevere with the 2x until front changing ceases to be a faff and becomes second nature and your mental software becomes 2x compatible.

So convert to binary then?

 

[Sloth]

If you're getting cross-chaining-like noises from the rear mech while in small (front) and big (rear) then it's not cross chaining, it's something else.

I had similar recently and it was due to my rear mech sitting too close to the teeth of the rear sprocket. So when I changed into bottom gear it chattered a bit and was reluctant to change up again. I tightened the "B-screw" so the mech was sitting a bit lower and all was well. What puzzled me was why this happened. It had been fine for about a year, and I've never touched the B screw before.

It's not coming from the rear mech, just the front, and only when I use extreme ends of the combos.
However, I appreciate that there may be some cross chaining if I use the small front gear and change to the smallest on the rear, or the other way around, large front and largest rear. However, there are too many of these cross chain combo's, i.e. not just the extremes but at least 2, sometimes 3 per front gear (so 2-3 smallest rear cross chaining when used with the smallest front, and 2-3 largest rear cross chaining when used with large front gear).
If it was just the 1 extreme combo at both ends (Small front/Smallest rear & large front/largest rear) I could accept that. But there only seems to be a few 'middle' gears as a sweet spot, for each of the front gears.
Trimming with the shifter sometimes helps a bit but not enough.
Now I'm confusing myself!

 

[Sloth]

That sounds like a very minimal gain for a shed load of money.

You could see it like that, but I suppose it really depends on how much value you place on solving the problem, and how much of a problem it actually is to the rider?

To me it's a PITA and worth every penny....once I have it to spend on the bike of course.

 

[wafter]

No, because that would be wrong.

 

[Dogtrousers]

It's not coming from the rear mech, just the front, and only when I use extreme ends of the combos.
However, I appreciate that there may be some cross chaining if I use the small front gear and change to the smallest on the rear, or the other way around, large front and largest rear. However, there are too many of these cross chain combo's, i.e. not just the ectremes but at least 2, sometimes 3 per front gear (so 2-3 smallest rear cross chaining when used with the smallest front, and 2-3 largest rear cross chaining when used with large front gear).
If it was just the 1 extreme combo at both ends (Small front/Smallest rear & large front/largest rear) I could accept that. But there only seems to be a few 'middle' gears as a sweet spot, for each of the front gears.
Now I'm confusing myself!

Sounds like your gears need adjusting.

A modern double should work fine in the cross chained extremes. SRAM advertise (or at least they used to) that all gears are usable.

It may not be best practice and some people like to bellyache about it but it's not really a big deal. Maybe you'd wear components out marginally faster if you did it all the time but that's all. If you do it now and then it should work fine and the world won't end. It's not really the big deal some people make out.

 

[Sloth]

Sounds like your gears need adjusting.

A modern double should work fine in the cross chained extremes. SRAM advertise (or at least they used to) that all gears are usable.

It may not be best practice and some people like to bellyache about it but it's not really a big deal. Maybe you'd wear components out marginally faster if you did it all the time but that's all. If you do it now and then it should work fine and the world won't end. It's not really the big deal some people make out.

Perhaps, but it’s been set up 3 times now by the LBS and it’s better now than it used to be but still not good enough IMO.
So far they’ve not charged me as it was bought brand new from them. However, if I get someone else to look at it I’ll have to pay. That might be an option though o suppose.

 

[wafter]

Might be worth having a go at adjustment yourself..?

I have the same groupset on my Genesis and generally really like it, although as much as I despise 1x must admit that I do find the front shifting a bit of a pain sometimes and something I have to do potentially more often than I'd like.

In use I prefer the 48/36/26 triple on my Fuji as that allows me to stay in the middle ring 95% of the time; which presumably has a truly central chainline (rather than being offset to either side as in the case of a double) so plays well with the full range of the 9sp cassette. The 26T gets used occasionally on big hills when heavily loaded / knackered, but I can't remember the last time I used the 48T ring.

I've often considered swapping to a 46/30 crankset on the Genesis in an effort to remain in the big ring most of the time, but I'm not sure if this is enough of a departure from the 50/34 to warrant the swap. Plus, I'm not sure how much of the cassette I could use with the 46T chainring if it's not on the chain centreline (especially as the GRX crankset I was considering has the chainline 2.5mm further out IIRC).

With the 105 on the Genesis I try to use each chainring with the corresponding 8 sprockets on the rear; certainly cross-chaining using the most extreme couple of sprockets (i.e. 34 with 11 or 13, or 50 with 34 or 31) suggests the drivetrain isn't as happy as it might be..

If you're not doing so already, shifting both ends at once can help manage the relationship between them - i.e. when shifting down from 50 to 34 on the front you can shift up three sprocket on the rear in one hit. This gives you a comparable next gear down; rather than having to go much lower than ideal on the left shifter then back up again on the right. This usually works very well, although can very occasionally lead to a dropped chain..

 

[fossyant]

This sounds more like cracking a nut with a hammer. I have absolutely no issues with 2x off road, even 3x on my old MTB. You get much smaller gaps between gears which is more noticeable on flat than up or down.

No issues with cross chaining on my two 2 x 10 bikes if done accidentally. Propper MTB then I'm usually on the small ring, and only need the big ring when on the flat

 

[Sloth]

I tend to stay in the small front ring and probably would hardly use the large one if I could access all the rear gears without cross chain on the small one.
Alas I can’t it seems.
Guys, I also still get some noise even after changing front rings, and trimming with the shifters, so it seems the bikes never really 100% happy with any gear combo, some better than others perhaps, and the odd ‘sweet spot’ but not enough to convince me that all is as it should be?