Why Do We have 12-Speed Drivetrains? | The Explainer 

Actually the fact that 10*42=420 or 10*50=500 is just a coincidence in this case, and it only works if the smallest cog has exactly 10 teeth. You don't calculate the range by multiplying, but by dividing. So 42/10= 4.20 which is 420%. We know this is true because if you instead had an 11-tooth cog it would be not be 11*42= 462% range, because that would mean more range than a smaller 10-tooth cog. It's actually 42/11 which would be a 381% range.

When I was a teen, I had a 12 speed - which meant 2 gears in the front and 6 in the back!

Next on the explainer Mike explains why the grim donut is never coming

I double-click through most of the gears on my 11/12 speed bikes; Next one is going to be 9-speed 11-50t to save weight and money for the same range.

Switched a 3x8 to a 1 x 12 on my hardtail, dropped some weight, couldn't be happier with the change.

The biggest bummer about 12 speed is we can no longer use the phrase, "But ours goes to 11."

Then you see box “9 is fine” dont blame em coming from a freerider

His math to find the range % is incorrect. It's 42/10 = 4.2 aka 420% or 50/10 is 500%. just multiplying it seems to work, But if you had a 11t gear, it would definitely not work to multiply.

Can't see why a 10-50 9 speed would be a problem tbh

We climb hills in the lowest 3 gears and then once we crest the hill we up-shift 5 gears as fast as we can. I don't see the need for 12 gears. 10-52 range with a 9-10 speed would be fine.

More cogs means smaller jumps between gears and on my road bike it makes fine tuning the gearing much easier. With 2X drive trains there are several overlaps in gear ratio so what seems like double the gears really is not. For simplicity and functionality 1 X 12 is great. The only real issue with 1 X, and I hardly every hear it mentioned, is that there is huge chain line problem. You would never think of riding a 2X in the Big ring, big cog but that is essentially what you are doing with a 1X if you use the largest cog. Granted, a single ring can be placed more centrally compared to where a 2X rings would be, but it is still a big stretch on chain line. This results in much faster wear of the entire drive train system.

Once the rear cassette reaches 26 inches in diameter. Those 26 ain't dead posters won't look so bad anymore :)

Because an 11pack of beer also sounds weird.

I think that sram and shimano should start working on internal gear boxes like the pinion gear box. That seems like the future. As always, thanks for the great free content !

Narrower chain and increased chain line variance between big and small cog = more chain wear= less chain life= more cost. Same goes for the rear cassette- more cogs = thinner material= easier to wear down= more cost. It's amazing how the marketing guys/con artists in the industry told us a few years ago that we needed more gears but "don't cross chain" as it wears out the chain faster. Now with a single chain ring and a wider cassette are we not cross chaining even more? Progress is great but it's no wonder the consumer gets cynical when there is product development for the sake of making a product change to that some consumers are hooked in to that "upgrade" i.e buy more product.

LOL "I know a guy..."

Aside from being able to make 1x on some frame configurations 1x is marketing. I ride all of them and they shift slower. You've just lost the spoke spacing you could've had. And come to think of it even on a plus hardtail you'd what gain 3 mm of a q factor. What happened to cross chaining all of a sudden it's not an angle of cross chaining, I'm lookin' at it and I can feel it. Less for the same pruce marketing imho

Microshift drivetrains have fewer speeds relative to other drivetrains with the same range. Acolyte 8-speed 12-46t: 383% gear range Advent 9-speed 11-46t: 418% gear range Advent X 10-speed 11-48t: 436% gear range

4:17 If im not mistaken its 50/10 makes a quotient of 5 and then multiply it by hundred to make 500%. Levy is on all kinds of drugs

I bought a sram12 speed setup near new second hand but sold it and bought a new 11 speed Shimano 5100 10-51 for less than the cost to buy a 12 speed cassette, I now have the range of a 12 albeit a little bit more of a step in places and the peace of mind that I can replace parts without taking on a new bank loan.

I have a 12spd SLX on my Surly ICT, and it’s actually pretty great! I prefer it to the 11spd I have in my trail bike for the riding I am doing, which is often high elevation steep climbing!

When I was a kid, I had a bike with a 3 speed F&S-hub. Those F&S-hubs with backpedal-brake were so common in germany in the 80's and 90's that they were considered standard for most non-sportive bikes. A whole generation grew up with them. OK for town commuting and recreational family tours and they were so reliable, they could run for decades without any service. Then around '90 I got a sportier (but not yet racebike) 6-speed bike (Sachs-Huret, indexed Clickbox) which I still own today. That was a huge jump. The total range grew while the steps got smaller. Further on I recognized that I would like one or two gears below for hillier sections and 1 or 2 gears above for the speedy strips. Of cause that was not possible without changing the whole drivetrain. The only thing possible I did, changing the freehub sprocket package to one with a bigger big sprocket. This spring I was willing to overhaul my old bike. Because the whole drivetrain was so used up after 30 years I had to renew it all and I took the chance to change it from 1X6 to 2X6. I got myself some NOS and used parts fitting to the age of the bike (2x crankset, front derailieur and a shifter with cable. New 6x freehub and chain.Now I am happy with the range the new setup provides, but unhappy with that "gap" in shifting when you have to switch the front, because it never fits and you have to switch the other shifter opposite to find the matching gear. Knowing that this was state of the art 30years ago I will keep this bike like it is now, but if I would buy a new one today, I would go with 1X10 to 1X12 of cause, depending on the price.

We don't get angry because of an extra cog, but because it made that we have do adopt yet another standard (from HG to Microspline/XD) with no or very little backward or inter-compatibility. This then hikes up prices which is absolutely not necessary.

3x9 is all I need with an 11-36 on the rear and 22-32-44 up front, I can go faster than guys with 1x drivetrain and also climb easier when it gets steep

I came here to understand more and I'm still wondering what % range a regular 3x7 bike has.

3 chainwheels 24-34-42. 8 cogs 11-12-14-16-18-21-24-28. Anything else is a solution in search of a problem from my perspective. Chain life and sprocket lifespan are very long -- well over 1 year on average with daily riding. My STX-RC shift pods are still working fine after 24 years on my 1998 Fisher. Hundreds of thousands of shifts by now without any service. Quite amazing longevity for plastic, brass, and stainless steel bits.

Just made the jump from 10 speed Saint to 12 speed XT. I agree that it’s about cadence. I’ve always liked to spin and with 10 speed I had to grind which never really suited my style. Loving 12 speed.

because sram couldnt make a front mech to compete w shimano

E13’s 9-46 works really well, I guarantee sram and shimoney are going to follow. Levy is gonna be screwed because he won’t be able to multiply the small number by the big number to get the correct range.

Can't remember the last time I shifted just one gear to optimise cadence. 9speed was plenty. Range is the important thing.

I was running 1x9 then 1x8 back in 2001 on my Intense Tracer. Before that used a Rohloff went back to derailleur cause of the weight. Used a Rohloff chain guide where the front derailleur went cause chain would come off the chainring. After that went to SingleSpeed on same bike but that was too much on a full suspension so got a hardtail SS. Got tired of all the gadgetry. Stopped riding seriously in 2008 when I went carless for 3years. Got a car again but never really went back to riding. A few months ago got a YT Izzo Core2 and am really liking the 1x12 full suspension again. No cross shifting to find the right gear, that was a pain especially in technical up/down, with multi rings up front. Man bike tech and geometry has come a long ways since the early 2000s. The NX is only a 11-50t and feels fine even with my out of shape middle age ass.

A cassette that is 10 to 50 isn't 500% range because it's 10 x 50 but just because 50 is 5 times larger than 10. Just as an 11speed cassette that is 11 to 46 isn't 11 x 46 which equals 506! The correct method for that example would be 46/11=4.18 or 418% gear range. Example 2. For a cassette that is 10 to 52 is 52/10=5.2 times that by 100 for the percentage and that's 520% (essentially moving the decimal 2 places).

When I had a 3x 9 I tended to leave the back alone and shift the front gear for up, down, and flat.... 3 Speed bike. Now I'm on a 1 x 10 (11-42) with 380% range. I want more range, but don't need more gears. 9 or 10 speeds is enough for me, stronger chains, less finicky shifting, but I'd like to get to that with a 500% range.

12 speed explained: bike has a 1x12 transmission. Thank you, thats the video.

The cassette range has (nearly) nothing to do with the number of cogs. You can build a 10-50 cassette with fewer cogs if you want (the gap between cogs might make the shifts a bit slower for some switches, but, as we can see, the 11 speed 10-42 cassette has a 6-tooth gap between the penultimate and the last cog, which is huge). Notice that in road bikes, 11-34 cassettes became popular with the arrival of 11-speed drivetrains. Right after that transition, you could easily find 11-34 8-speed cassettes, because now they were trendy. The - true - good reason is: the number of cogs has a positive impact on the compromises you have to do in order to maximize your range, or (which is the correlate) a very good impact on continuity in short range cassettes. That's why roadies who know what they're doing (and live on plains) love the 11-speed 12-25 cassettes: the scaling is just great, with only one-tooth jumps from the 12-tooth cog up until the 19-tooth cog. It's the closest to continuous gearboxes that you can achieve with the system. Plus 500 % is not 80 % more than 420 %, technically, although you can count nominal percentages (which doesn't make sense). It's more like 20 % better.

4:17 Hope he's joking with the calculation of range multiplying smallest and largest cog xDD

Just took delivery of a Cube reaction carbon hard tail with a mix of new generation 1 X 12 SLX and XT bits with 32T up front driving 10-51 in the back. It's been years since I have ridden. My last bike, was an old 90s era specialized chromoly frame job with some upgraded components from the early 2000s. I think my last setup was a 3 X 8 with probably close to 600% of "range." Gripes about the 1 X 1. I feel like I can almost "feel" the driveline efficiency drop off at the far ends of the cassette. It's not as smooth running as even cheaper groupsets back in day in low gears due to the chain "angle." 2. Even with this latest generation of 10-51 tooth cassette, I feel like I'm still missing a bit of low and and top end. Probably don't "need" it, but I can definitely "feel" that the range isn't there. 3. 12 gears on the back has much the same problem that 2 X and 3 X sets have, too many pointlessly tight gears for the intended use of the type of bike this is going on. I find myself almost always "double-tapping" the up-shifts between putting down power. I'd like to see them keep the same "thinner" chain and tighter cogs, but drop down to 8-9 speeds with just slightly more range. Can I have a 10-54? .... 10, 12, 15, 19, 24, 30, 37, 45, 54? That would solve the range issues, the "not good alignment" issues, and the too many gears issues.

2x12 XT here. Can go fast on flats AND climb everything without a problem. No ragrets.

10,11,&12 speed are all phenomenal in there own right.I personally have a need for so it’s all about the deraileur capacity to me.Any XTR system does the trick for me as far as cadience,efficiency is concerned.

My aliexpress eagle sx 12spd complete drivetrain runs like a champ. Final cost with shipping was $335 cad. 32 tooth chainring, crank arms, dub bb, chain, cassette, derailleur, and shifter. All brand new with serial numbers. I couldn't get my 3x7 dismantled fast enough... What a difference.

Pretty stoked on the Advent X 11-48 10sp. Also looked at the Box 9sp. 12sp works great out of the box but after a few rides and bashes, you're going to tune that derailleur for the rest of your life. The benefits don't outweigh the headaches IMO. Loving the low-tech setup on my new Transition.

I personally love the 12 speeds. they just work so well and these together with a narrow/wide chainring up front and a clutch in the rear have together made it so that I haven't dropped a chain for as long as I have had this bike which is almost 1.5 years now. the clutter on the handlebars deal isn't a positive I'm behind tho, I never had a problem with my 9x3 speed setup clutter wise. I knew where stuff were and I never had a problem with it.

Ran 1x9 guerrilla style on my old 26" bike. That was just fine... Now my new 29" full suspension has 1x12 but honestly I couldn't care less.

I'd prefer even 1x6 setup with 500% range. I'd gladly sacrifice half the gears to reduce cost and make parts stronger thanks to wider chain. I understand that you want more gears for competition use but for hobby use it really doesn't matter how fast you can travel on MTB so you can use less gears but you still want lots of range. That said, I guess rear derailleur would have hard time switching between 6 gears in 500% range because the size difference between gears would be so huge.

Just installed a Sora R3000 on my lightweight 2006 ZR 9000 Trek bicycle (carbon on both frame ends fork and seat stays). The 9 speed with its front derailleur gave me a great test ride, without a huge cassette on the rear wheel. Weight be damned, the 18 forward speeds might have some overlap, but I do not shift like I found necessary when I was riding a three chainring crank & downtube shifters. I do not mountain bicycles, or go off pavement yet I am about to convert to tubeless tires to eliminate the goathead flat tires we have all over the valley.

I am still riding a 1998 GT 1000 with a 3x8 Shimano drive train. Personally, I never use the biggest front cog because it's too high, so I typically run the middle cog unless if I'm out of shape and need less resistance with the smallest cog. I am looking forward to the day when I can afford a Marin Rift Zone 3 with the 1x drivetrain to make shifting easier

I love the 12 speed. Here i need all 11-52 to get up the hills. I'm glad I bought a 1x12.

I'm 100% happy with 12 speed and I'm stoked Shimano finally entered the game! 💯

I have an 11/46 and feel perfectly fine with it

You can still buy brand new bikes with 1x10. REI sells bikes with 11-42. 28 ring. Which means your top speed where you can pedal effectively is only 19-20 mph depending on cadence. You also don’t get as low of a granny as running a 32/50 low gear. So worse on both ends. It’s not just the gaps are bigger, it’s that you lose range on both sides why people don’t run 10 speed. Of course, I used to have a 3x9 but in truth I only effectively lost 2 speeds at the high end, nothing at the low end when going to 1x12 because so many gears overlap on a 3x.

He didn’t mention the option on chain ring size that 12 speed gives. I’ve just upgraded from XO1 11 10/42 x 28 chain ring to XO1 12 10/52 x 32. I now have a much faster 12th gear and an even easier granny gear. Win/win. Paired with an absolute black oval it is amazing.

I run an 8speed 11-42 cassette using a 10 speed expander cog that weighs 360g. 30 tooth N/W front with 26' wheels. $30 derailleur $30 shifter $11 chain $15 cassette $40 expander. My gravel bike runs a 9 speed 11-40 that weighs 460g, with triple front derailleur.

15 speed cassettes please - oh f it - let's go 20. I want more rotational mass!

still running a 3x9....not sure what 10000% range it is. Most people made the claim to switch to 1x was for weight savings, and a more simple bar layout. And then they add a dropper post and lever....Not sure what gain you actually get with a 1x12 system. A Granny gear up front is much lighter than a 50+ tooth gear out back.

Give me a front derailleur any day. Bigger range, coarse up/down changing when hitting hills rather than going through loads of cogs on the back, more compact rear cassette for smoother changing. Higher overall high and lower overall low. OR a 2 speed rear hub coupled with single front cog

KCNC makes a 9-52 tooth and this is the next cassette i'm getting ever more range than the new SRAM stuff

Back in 2015 my dad had and 11 speed XTR cassette that was 10-42t but he got a OneUp extension that let him have a 50 tooth cog. Plus his bike had a single chain ring in the front.

Mr. Levy your percentage calculations are killing me. I am officially dead.

The 2 x 10 Drivetrain on my Fatty has 625% range. For touring add a 42t ring for some speed and get 729% - Should I go 1x? Why do 'we' have 12-speed drivetrains?

I still have a 3x9 bike and a 1x11 (i know it's not 12) once i tried it i have seen the light. not having to shift in the front is great. fully support the 1x12 movement.

A little too much focus is on range, i.e. 420% or 500%. What is more important is gear ratio, 32:50 or 22:32 (chain ring teeth divided by sprocket teeth). That gives your effort to performance. The cadence issue is the best argument for more cogs when switching to a 1X system. I have wondered if making the switch would worth it since I can't afford a new full squish bike.

I like my Diamondback Catch with two front gears and 10 gears in the rear. I have a 20 speed... gives better high end pedaling.

I thing that unless you're an xc racer that alway must have the perfect cadence for climbing super fast, you're gonna be fine with a 9 or 10 speed 11-46 or 48 cassette. Also, 12 speed chains and cassettes that aren't garbage are stupid expensive

Can you team up with donut media for a video on Levy's mini?

i'm using a 9 speed 11-50t cassette for emtb. reason is that 9s cogs are thicker than 10s and thus get beaten up by the chain much less. The bigger jumps between the gears is actally perfect when riding with the motor, takes less shifter clicks during acceleration or downshifting on hill climbs. biggest advantage is cheap and robust chains, and most of all much less crosschaining!

most people talking bout 12 speed and then there is me and my friend wanting rotor 1x13 drivetrain XD

I know the trend has gone to a single speed chainring and I am going to get battered here for suggesting a 2x12 setup but have an open mind please. Ideally in terms of gear ratio which is the chainring size/cassette cog size, we want to have the smallest ratio when we are at a low gear and the biggest ratio when we are on the high gear. Only Shimano makes a 2x12 setup and usually I see them on hardtails. The cassette is a 10-45 tooth with either a 22/36t or 24/38t chainring. If you go for a 1x12 setup, your cassette would be a 10-51t and your chainring would be either a 28,t 30t, 32t or a 34t. The average rider would usually go for a 30t chainring. That means the smallest gear ratio = 30/51 = 0.5882 and the largest = 30/10 = 3.0. If you go for a 2x12 setup with a 10-45t cassette and a common 24/38t chainring, your smallest gear ratio = 24/45 = 0.5333 and your largest = 38/10 = 3.8. That's a much larger range with the 2 extreme ratios being smaller and larger than the 1x12 setup. Also not forgetting the number of ratio steps from 0.5333 to 3.8. I appreciate the reasoning for simplicity and saving weight but how much weight can one save from ditching the front derailleur and shifter and has mountain biking become too much of a chore for riders to worry about the left shifter? Before the arrival of 12 speed, we had 2x or 3x setups and the world did not end or turned to chaos.

People are still changing the front chain rings, it just means a trip back home or the nearest bike shop. Kinda silly that 34 tooth is spec'd when people riding actual mountains end up buying smaller and smaller rings. Just checkout how many lightly used 34, 32, and even 30 tooth chain rings are for sale.

500% grear range = good 12 gears = unnecessary For most of us riding local trails, the quick changes from descents to short sharp climbs that are so common necessitate quick and drastic gear changes from very high to very low gears just to make the feature. A wide range rear casset with fewer gears would be really useful for us average XC / trail riders.

We had Zee and Saint 1x10 before anyone even knew SRAM did a premium drivetrain (in Europe, where higher prices and zero customer service keeps SRAM pretty much limited to OE only).

Even 1x8 sp. is fine, on a 29er with a 30t CR. + 11-40t Cassette. Low gear 22", High Gear 79". On a 26er with a 34t CR and same Cassette, gearing is about the same low gear 22", high gear 80 gi.

I use 11 speed, jumped from 9 and have used many bikes but 10 speed seems to be a sweet spot that i think was short lived

I was dropping my front derailleur & chainrings for 1x9 drives in the '00s.

I know most people they see 12 speed and they say I want but when you go to buy it's extremely expensive. The more engineering they do the more price goes up and people who don't have much money are left in the dust cause of cost. Also with the new technology like people who want to use 9 or 10 speed they can't cause most of the companies switched over to a thru axle, yes I know they make adapters for them but your kinda forced to build a custom wheel so you can get what you want in your wheelset. I don't think the people in the low income sector don't want to have to build a custom wheel or buy a special frame that has the modern components they want.

On my 3x9, I was always using my granny ring and I never had a cadence problem... or rather I was either climbing, resting, or letting gravity do the work. A 1x10 or even 1x9 would be fine with me as long as the large ring is at least 46T for climbing. If you’re worried about cadence don’t go down to 10T. Stop at 16 or even higher. I won’t use anything faster. If I’m going that fast I’m not pedalling anymore.

I'm okay with my 12 speed performance. Have eagle on 2 of my bikes. 11x with e13 cassette on another(thats working well for me too). My next, project I am going to try microshifh advent x though.

Don't forget narrow wide chain retention. Probably the best reason to run 1x .

The Shimano slx 1x12 on my Giant trance 2 29er is such a smooth drvetrain.

When is the XC Field test coming?! Need to decide on my next bike.

Does anyone remember if the old 8 speed kit lasted better, and stayed in tune or maybe it was just the Moto oil I used on the chain back then.

And here I thought the purpose of the 12-speed drivetrain was to get the derailleur lower and help clear the sticks off the trails in the spring.

Ultimately, I see the extended range, particularly with the larger gears on the cassette, as something that allows riders to use larger chainrings, giving them more power in the smaller gears, while not necessarily giving up the 'granny gear' on climbs. I don't understand why many bikes come with 30t or 32t chainrings at all... I have a 34t chainring on my 1x10 (11-42 cassette - converted from a 2x, 11-36) and while I could do with the bigger granny gear from time to time, I am hesitant to go with a 36t chainring only because I'll lose out on the bigger gears when climbing. I like the larger gears and will ultimately end up on a 10-51 or 10-52 set up but more because I'll want to put a 36t chainring up front and still be able to climb like a granny....

Just tried to fit my Shimano 11s crank to my Shimano 12s transmission and was enraged when it didn’t work.

Yes, range and cadence are valid reasons to get more gears, but not much between 11 and 12 speed cassettes. I've used an SLX 1x11 with some modifications to run an 11-50 cassette and I also recently used a SRAM SX Eagle 1x12 with an 11-50 cassette as well for a month. They're so close in terms of cadence I rarely felt a difference and the range is the same. Then there's the 10 tooth cog, but then again, that was already possible in the 11 speed cassettes back in the day. The only drawback I had with the modified 1x11 was the downshifting was lazy because the derailleur wasn't meant to handle the 50T cassette as smooth as newer ones, so I had to hold the shifting lever a fraction of a second after I hear the click for the gear to shift properly, but then again, newer 11 speed derailleur with the 12 speed improvements would've got the same result without changing the whole drivetrain. The switch to 12 speeds it's something that eventually needed to happen, but not really that much with the current implementation, rather when we were moving ranges like 9-52 so there's much more range to move and the gears would be much more spread.

Whit all do respect to Sram they never made a front derailleur that workd, so thats why they killed it in the first place! But better since then they have made a lot of nice stuff regarding driveterain! Don't wanna mention the brakes the should dropd it like its hot 😊

I enjoy climbing steep technical terrain so 12 speed is a must for me. I'd probably be bashing front chain rings on rocks if I had a front derailleur.

I ran a 1x9 XT drivetrain on my 26” way back in 2003. Only a fool would want less range when the engineering allows for it. I converted that old bike to 1x12 GX a few months back and haven’t looked back.

I've gone 12 speed on my mountain bike Trek Roscoe 7 and love it 😀

Question: does anyone really use the 2 smallest cogs on a mtb? If I’m going fast enough to use those gears I’m probably not pedaling or even seated. Skip those two, go back to 10 chainrings, lower the price, and I’d happily buy.

I love it... thou so expensive! I noticed also, the 12 speed cogs and chains wears off faster! More expensive maintenance! 100% enjoyment! + 100% expense!!!

12 is nice for sure but as long as i can keep getting XT 11-46 cassettes, i'm going to keep rolling with my 11 speeds (and my HG hub).

Adding the clutch in rear derailleurs was probably a bigger deal. Keep whatever you have clean and tuned and enjoy the ride.

It's not that maths isn't his forte - the real problem is that there was no one screaming "STOP! This is not what I learned. Let's get the calculation right and tape that section again"

Just this year I get a new mountain bike with twelve speed I love it! Sure as hell beats having a front derailer!!

I think 12 speeds is plenty. 13 and 14s that are coming are uncesserary weight, complication, and wears out quicker

I like bigger jumps between gears still running 9 speed 11-46 1x i tried an 11-40 cassette and found it a bit too close ratio shifing 2 or 3 gears at a time i may go up to 10 speed one day but 11 or 12 i question reliability and cost i do however use an 11 speed chain for the extra clearance as 9-12 speed chains are aparently all the same width internally only the outer plates getting thiner

Just went from 10 to 12 speeds when I upgraded my bike. I really hated 12 speeds at first, minnesota is a lot of short punchy ups with short downs. I swore i was going box wide range 9 speed, however once I actually started paying attention to cadence, I realized how important 12 speed is. Its definitely not perfect and super expensive, but its pretty awesome.

I think a lot of people who don't care about getting up hills efficiently or doing much of anything which requires pedalling would be great with box 9. There are a lot of those people. Just put it in the easiest gear and grind up any hill. Pedal very little down. For those pushing their limits and desiring maximum speed from it that efficiency of choice is important.

Well, I had an 11 Speed NX system from a bike a couple of years ago and this year my bike came with 12 speed and the big difference was the addition of the 50 tooth cog! So I did an enduro race last year on my 11 speed system, I want to say it was 11 - 46 Sun Race cassette with an NX shifter and derailleur. I was getting killed on the climb back up the hill for the next waves. I saw these riders with the 50T cogs and those 4 teeth made a huge difference, especially on our bigger 150mm and up travel bikes. This year, no enduro races due to Covid-19, I have a much easier time climbing many of those same or similar hills. I can go just as fast if not faster because I can spin at a higher cadence. My guess is that if I had a light weight XC bike the 46 would do pretty well on climbs, but with a trail or enduro bike the 50 tooth is a huge benefit. Obviously if you are doing lift access riding and only downhill a box system with fewer gears would be nice. I like fewer shifts to get into the gear I want. So these days I struggle sometimes because I have to click the lever 4 or more times sometimes to shift into higher (smaller cogs) gear and often times I find myself in the wrong gear when I start to pedal going down hill. If I am in the biggest ring, 4 clicks means I have 7 left to go and transitioning from a steep climb to a quick downhill sometimes means I need to click 6 or 7 times. So yeah, it's a bit different than I am used to, that is for sure. I love my Eagle setup I have today on my Enduro bike, an Ibis Ripmo AF, but if I did have a dedicated downhill bike I would love an 8 or 9 speed system.

I'm still on the fence about more gears than my solid 11-28 8 speed. Gears are nicely spaced out and the large chain will always be bulletproof.