How about 1X vs 2X efficiency (assuming somehow equivalent gear ratios)? 2X would be a bit more efficient on the highest and lowest gears while 1X will lighter (200-300 grams on an MTB, less for a RoadBike), but will the weight saving be able to offset the loss of efficiency? Converted my 3X9 (11-34t cassette) MTB to a 1X9 (11-40t cassette), i can hear the cross-chain friction when i am on the lowest gear and the chain changes gear when backpedalled (main symptom of cross-chaining). I wonder if i would be better-off with a 11-34t 2X...
During shorter climbs, I frequently shift to lower gears on the back while leaving the front alone until I'm cross-chaining. The only downside is that I can hear the chain rubbing but the bike still shifts and handles just fine. I don't know that I've ever taken it to the extremes shown in this video, but it just isn't a big deal to cross-chain when you need a quick minute at a lower gear.
Sometimes but the furthest I go on the cassette is the second cog from the biggest one. I believe Dura Ace has a function that stops it on the second to biggest and you carnt go to biggest cog but not tried it on Ultegra yet.
Depends. I tend more to do it in the biggy-bigs position, on light gradient climbs for short periods, but I try to stay away from the extremes by at least 2 cogs. The other way around, interestingly, I go to the big ring way earlier, in the middle of the cassette, it's just easier to pick up speed and cadence, for example when you're going downhill at the top of a climb and you can virtually throw any high gear in. I can recall a situation from yesterday's ride when I shifted back up a gear because it clearly made a difference in drivetrain noise. At the end of the day, I have a 105 groupset, chains and cassettes are actually quite cheap but I don't want to beat on my bike too much, even though a new chain every 5k wouldn't really hurt the wallet.
My personal rule is quite straightforward (Shimano 105 2x10): When I'm on the 52 ring, I never use the two big ones, when I'm on 39, I don't use the two small ones. I don't want to wear out chain and sprockets too quickly...
... which is a proper strategy, as you really do not need these gears.But to be honest: When you are in a tough situation in a race or in the group, you may be forced to user these 'forbidden' gears. Imagine you are coming out of an ascent of 7% gradient and its constantly getting flatter and flatter. You are e.g. using 39/15, but in the process you will need ...14, ... 13 and even 12 or 11. If you do the 'double shift' (to, e.g. 52/16) you would loose contact to your group or even it would not work due to the high tension on the chain. Real life is not as easy as theory...
My condolences to Biggie Bigs and Smallsy Smalls. While your son passed a long time ago, he was a legend in the rap industry. Love the song his rap partner Piddly Widdly made in his honor.
@@Snagmaster30lb Mtb powertrains differ from road powertrains. I dont know if its enough to counter the cross chaining, but there are many small differences.
1x groupset have the chainring positioned in-between the big and small ring positions; thus, while your average cross chain angle may be greater, the maximum amount that you can cross chain is significantly reduced and this is where it really matters. 1x is actually really good for chain line as the increased variety of ring size means you can selected the perfect size for your riding such that you spend the majority of the time with a straight chain line.
I think it depends on the terrain. Where I live one would either ride up or down, at least it's what I like to do. If its mostly flat one would use the middle gears more often and 1x is more efficient.
@@karlcorrz If your MTB does more miles on the back of a SUV than it does being pedalled and is only ridden in unsatisfying loops that go nowhere on purpose-designed MTB trails, then 1x is a fine solution. If your idea of a proper MTB spin involves biking in actual mountains, covering everything from fast road and fire road sections between trails to the steepest climbs you can find, with plenty of quality tech descending in between, on trails that were never intended for MTB's but accidentally are amazing to ride for anyone with the skill, all in one spin you'll need a bigger gear range. As for efficiency it's already been established here and in more scientifically rigorous tests that straight chains are more efficient. However, for the endurobro types MTB marketing is mostly aimed at, knowing how to use a front derailleur is getting looked at similarly to being able to drive a stick transmission car at this stage. With 1x the choice is between chewing the tiny top gear sprocket up in no time because anything over 25 km/h will already have you in top gear and spinning it out, or end up having a decent top gear and having to walk up climbs that could be pedalled easily with the right bottom gear. Keep in mind that unlike on road bikes, where 11 teeth is as small as top gear goes with decent chain wrap around that gear, modern MTB drivetrains have 10 tooth top gears, of which maybe 4 teeth end up carrying the entire chain tension due to them reducing chain wrap trying to increase shifting speed to compensate for the lower wheel rpm that ever bigger and therefore ever slower turning wheels are causing, so wear will be fast. Sadly buying a MTB that can even take a front derailleur is almost impossible at this stage, so after 25+ years mountain biking, I'm disgusted with the industry because even though Shimano make a proper 600+% range 2x12 drivetrain, I can no longer get bikes off the shelf with frames to which this drivetrain can be fitted. Shimano are a bit of a pain on this front too as XTR is the only option that allows people to get a 38 tooth big ring as part of a 38-28 chainset, which is closer to what I'm used to from 3x10 drivetrains with 27.5 or 26" wheels and this setup costs 3 times as much as 36-26 XT level chainrings, for literally no benefit bar saving a couple of grams. The idea behind this is not about me being anything like strong enough to push this top gear on everything, the idea is to make top gear high enough that I don't spend much time in it, to give it a chance to balance wear life of the tiny top gear sprocket against the lower gears that wear more slowly because of having more teeth to share the load.
@@nathanphillips875 except on my electric bike kit, where the front chainring is level with about the 6th cog. I know because bumps can pull the chain off in the lower gears.
This opening leaves the impression that Alex is out there in the English countryside warning everyone he sees of the horrors of drive train inefficiency.
Yeah I do. Right now my Specialized bike is having big problems when I go to the Granny the chain does not shift over well. Sometimes it will not shift at all and it seizes up. Have to get off, back pedal and manually put the chain on. Have had it at a few repair shops without luck. Getting new bike next month.
I'm riding with a 50/34 on the front and a 11/34 on the back. My PB on my favourite climb (2,8km at 5,6% avg) was around 9 minutes when I was climbing on the 34 chainring. One day I decided to force myself to stay on the big ring and smashed my best time by almost 40 seconds (8:22). I felt way more efficient with a really tensed chain rather than using the same ratio but with less tension... So I kind of enjoy cross-chaining from time to time :)
The worse thing about cross-chaining is the damage that happens to the drivetrain. I had 2 friends running into trouble with this. One guy snapped his chain in half and had to taxi home. The other guy actually damaged two things. We found a one half of a link in the chain cracked.. and he actually broke the spring mechanism on his front/rear derailleur. He had to buy two new di2 derailleurs and a chain.. very $$ lesson. Yes where we live are tons of hills and mountains, therefore cross-chaining on biggie/biggie isnt ideal for over an hr.
You'd think that an electronic shifting system would come with the ability to prevent cross-chaining through some setting. Or are they still not quite caught up with app technology?
Going with the sprockets near the center of the cassette is my preference on my 3x7 drivetrain-riding in the second chainring most of the time as a leisure cyclist. Will switch to the big (3rd) chainring when I need to cruise near the top speed of my hybrid. Rarely need the small chainring (1st) since I almost never have steep hills to climb. The gears are not clearly labeled on my twist shifters unfortunately. Looking down to see the chainrings helps and getting used to how the gears feel makes gear selection more intuitive and the riding experience more efficient and enjoyable. On my bike I use only sprockets 1 and 2 when the small chainring is selected and avoid those sprockets when the big chainring is selected to avoid cross chaining. When the middle chainring (2nd) is selected any sprocket should be fine-the straighter the chain line the better of course.
I see cross chaining all the time. I never do it as I was taught not to back in the early 90's when I used to hang out at my local bike shops. I've heard from a reliable source that Simano's 3X8 mountain bike groupset was the last groupset where you could be in any gear ratio and not have any problems. Thanks.
@7:00 I agree that you really should optimize your gear ratios. When I started commuting, I realized that I was hardly ever in my 50 tooth big ring. My total weight was the biggest factor. Once I swapped out my 50 for a 46, I was able to use my entire drivetrain.
My gravel bike came with a 46-36 chainset, and I've ended up quite liking it. The smaller gap makes it easy to avoid cross-chaining and the top speed is the same as a 50-12 (which I would only reach on downhills anyway).
Some of the problem is extra friction. Another thing often overlooked is to do with vectors. If the chain is at an angle, then one (the larger) part of the vector is pulling the sprocket, but the other (smaller) part of the vector is wasted energy. This is only a small effect, but the amount will vary depending on the length of your chain stay and the size of the angle. For most purposes, in most contexts, the difference is negligible. On the road, in traffic, a quick single change to a gear that works well enough is better than a slower double change to a slightly more efficient gear.
I remember one mountain stage where a (Schleck?) lost the stage because he cross-chained and then missed a shift, dropping the chain. It just shows that being a pro doesn't mean everything.
@@ericpmoss usually, it's shifting under load which causes the chain to drop or the fd not to function properly .. not cross chaining itself .. pro's cross chain on steep climbs precisely to avoid shifting rings while under load .. maybe, just maybe, frank shifted too late while under load causing his chain to drop ..
Being a pessimist retired engineer I actually did the work of freezing each frame, read the test and formed my own un obvious conclusions. In reference to causes of friction of smaller gears. The articulation of each link is greater therefore friction is increased. False. There are proportionally less links so the total articulation of the chain is the same. Ergo, if the chain has to bend 180 degrees to go around it does not matter if that is spread over a bigger or smaller gear weather that is in a derailleur, cassette, chainring. The losses are totally due to increased tension of chain from smaller cogs. (this does not hold true for derailleur gears since this is a parasitic loss not drive loss and they do not increase tension). The x1 is less efficient also due to more extreme cross chain angles and more chain length. This chain weight goes through a non circular path in the derailleur gears and also vibrates the larger derailleur/cage in all directions. All this power comes from you. Power loss is proportional to power in and rpm so loss in this test was about 2% at 95rpm crank 250w. I pedal slower and so loss will be less at 1.5%
@@harlanrosenthal8648 - you're probably correct, I don't usually ride much on the outer gears (inner or outer) so maybe that and the chainring being centered gives me the impression of efficiency. I do know that the drive train is quieter than my old mechanical 1x setup as well as my road 2x setup.
My introduction to cross-chaining came many years ago when my friend and I both had cheaper bikes with a triple chainset and Tourney rear derailleur - and smally-small would cause the chain to jump off the lower jockey wheel.
There is one thing that the video does not even mention: The gear ratios we use to ride most often, i.e. those in the middle of the whole gear ratio range (that means about 3:1), afford a chainring-cog-combination, that causes cross-chaining. Lets have a look at an example: 39/13 is almost the same as 53/18. Using an 11-sprocket casette with 11-23 the 14-cog is the 3rd (counting from right to left) an the chain is on the small chainring. This is cross-chaining, off course. But using the 53/18 alternative is cross-chaining as well, as the 18 cog is the 4th (counting from the left) and the chain is the big chainring. At this point you will probably regard that as a 'minor problem', but what, when the gear turns out to be a little to hard or to small? Change the chainring to avoid cross-chaining? But what is the proper gear? Given you are riding with 53/18 on a bad road with strong head wind an the gear turns out to be a little bit to hard. Which cog is the proper one after switching to the inner chainring? The answer is: 39/14. So you are forced to change chainrings AND to shift 4 times to reach the proper cog. Now the tarmac unexpectedly becomes much better and houses take a bit from the headwind. Whole procedure vice versa? I think we should talk about real problems, not about artificially invented problems. Given that cross-chaining is a problem at all, which turned out to be not the case after 2:30 of the video. The rest - 7:30 min - is... now, I do not want to insult someone... ...
When thinking about durability, the other factor to mention is just plain old tension on the chain. All other things being equal, more chain tension will wear cog teeth and chain bushings faster (although, to be fair, it's chain tension that makes you go, too!). Thing is, the chain is actually under a bit less tension in a larger chainring than a small one. Assuming your torque on the crank is the same, the force on the chain is torque / r, where r = the moment arm of the chainring, or more simply, the radius of the chainring. Bigger rings have a bigger radius, so the tension on everything is smaller when you're in a larger ring. This is, BTW, why a big rider like me (210 lb) looks skeptically at all the road groups using mini chainrings and 10T small cogs; great way to wear out drivetrains faster!
Biggy-big also means that each link in the chain doesn’t have to bend as much around the gears, saving you over a equally but oppositely angled smally-small cross-chain. Perhaps why the losses in the big chainring aren’t as bad?
What's slower for a short and medium climb, cross chaining or lower the power for the upshift after? I cross chain all the time with R9170 because the system makes it feel unnoticable and I don't care a lot about watts.
FWIW, because the chain lines or recumbents are so much longer than upright bicycles, the angles are all much shallower, so cross chaining doesn't much exist. Seriously. All the angles are about a third of what they are on upright bicycles.
Ever since I learned about the concept of Trimming from Trace Velo I have been crosschaining on my bike with 50Bigsy-28Big chainring-rear cogs respectively. But it should be noted that I only run a 7speed Shimano Tourney drivetrain.
@@hucklejoko4838 I hope this isn't a stupid question, but: If you can achieve the same (or almost the same) gear ratio with a different combination, wouldn't you be at the same cadence? I know that on my 3x9 there is a wide range where I could achieve very close gear ratios on any front ring.
@@harlanrosenthal8648 i checked the math before deciding to stick with crosschaining, but long story short my Bigsy Big ratio is still slightly more than that of my 4th gear(which is the closest) when using the smaller chainring in the front. If i go any easier I'd be out spinning and therefore losing speed
A friend and I were joined by another guy on a ride and he really struggled up the hills. In the end, we had to shorten the ride because he bonked big-time. As we ambled home, he was still staying on the big ring, even up the steeper climbs. When I finally suggested he dropped down to the small ring, he said will that make a difference?
@tim rawson You do realize friends tend to give each other hell on a friendly manner and laugh about it even if it is true, right? You sound like miserable company to be with...
I have my gears displayed on my garmin and forbid myself from entering the biggest two cogs when in the big ring and the smallest three cogs when in the small ring. Since I have been doing this my chain and cassette life has increased significantly.
Doesn't the chain rub on the front derailleur at some point? I am riding 105 and that's what's happening on my bike, possibly time to re-adjust it? I am new to this and particularly this group set.
@@mrendo4742 agreed, I have Ultegra 6800 on one bike and 105 5800 on my other, both are brilliant, ultegra feels no different (brakes are disc in one and rim in the other so can compare those but the gearing is great) I only got the ultegra for one as it was a steal on eBay and comparable in cost to 105 so figured I may as well, but I would never buy a bike because of the “better” group set the costs simply don’t make sense unless you’re actually racing at a high level
Great video, I've always wondered this, especially that bit about the best time to shift between chainrings! Facts are facts, but I feel like I have a ton more leverage climbing hills than going with a more reasonable gear ratio in the smaller chainring. Probably still going to cross chain!
So cross training for me works best in certain situations and I know its bad but here is why. I have Campy 50/34 front & a 11/30 in the back. SOMETIMES I am going up a slight incline in the 50/29 combo & I need just a bit easier gear so I go to the 50/30 w the goal of keeping my cadence high & getting to top of incline w good speed & high cadence. The very moment I drop to the 34/12 ( or something near that gearing) I INSTANTLY drop 4-6mph & my cadence gets all wanky. So for me, even though I know its bad for the expensive campy chain, sometimes I have to cross train to keep my speed and cadence high
50/30 is closer to 34/20, so 34/12 will definitely have you mashing your way up. Not only that, going from 50/30 to 34/12 requires shifting through the entire cassette. If you shift to the small chainring, you can just shift up 2 or 3 times on the cassette to get a similar gear ratio.
I think smallsy small is worse than biggsy big as well because efficiency is lost through friction in the chain rollers themselves, and on smallsy small the chain has to do an awful lot more bending to get round the smaller cogs, as well as through the “closed” derailleur with its far more acute angles, than on a bigger cog. Tighter bends are more friction and less efficient.
Used correctly your 22spd bike is actually 11spd, that’s how I consider mine anyway. It should have been mentioned in the video that if you cross chain for example big / big then there is often an identical gear ratio available by being in the small chainring and further down the cassette, as gear ratios are repeated in many 22spd drivetrains.
With a 22spd bike you have a lower lowest gear and a higher highest gear. So a 22spd bike is better for climbing and going downhill on tarmac. I'd rather take a 2x groupset.
I wish you would have had the friction numbers for a 1x setup. I wouldn't be surprised if there's a lot of friction in the smallest and largest cogs...
I am in a particular windy area. Sometimes around here the wind can gust 20-30 mph. If you are riding in those conditions it is important to use the smallest ring in the front and then move up and down on the cassette for different conditions. If you use the big ring it gets very hard.
8:00 So with electronic shifters you can just program *ideal* shifting sequence and use only one lever to shift from the lowest to the highest ratio. 2 cogs difference - not a big deal, I think
wow took me all spring to figure this out ..I didnt realize I had missed a GCN vid until I looked at the date and realized I had something else on ,y plate that day. Great vid learned a lot.
In the olde days this was a little more risky with short cage rear derailleurs. Depending on the spread of gear ratios it was often necessary to balance chain length with the amount of slack to get into a range of gears on the back while using the big chainring while at the same time not having it drape loosely at the other end on the smaller one. This was more common on triple chainring setups. Biggie biggie in those cases was simply not an option unless you wanted to test if your chain would explode before something else in the drivetrain.
Just today I did cross chaining to test it. I rode "biggy-big" on a slightly climb just to avoid shifting front derailleur. So you're right - the rear derailleur was worn out quietly fast. Somehow it bent in the spokes and blocked the rear wheel. I don't cross chaining anymore. Never
I don't ride with a cross chain any more because I feel the increase in friction. I do store my bike with a cross chain from smallest front ring to the smallest back chain ring . This is to make sure my rear derailleur's spring isn't loaded too much for long periods of time .
I learned not to cross chain at 10 when i got my first 3x5 bike. Havent ever done it ever since. Only onstance I momentarily cross chain is when I'm at a stop or red light. I always drop down to my smallest gear (small ring-big cog) when i'm stopped, makes it wasier to go away. I'll start, then have a couple pedal strokes on biggie bigs before getting back to my standard gears.
The two things are directly related. The most common model for quantifying wear in engineering is to consider it proportional to the energy dissipated by friction. And you minimize this dissipation when the efficiency is highest.
The big problem isn't efficiency or noise, but drivetrain life. You'll wear out your chain, cassettes and chainrings much faster by cross-chaining, which can get pretty expensive. Chains get incredibly rigid when pushed sideways so just imagine the stress and wear it places on the cogs and rings, not to mention chain side plates and pins.
I'd usually move to small-small just before reaching a climb, to keep speed but not need to change the front under load. If your chain is too small for big-big it just means it wasn't built properly.
I never cross chained and i almost never used my big ring until i switched from 130bcd 52-39 to 110bcd 46-34. Now I'm constantly doing it, and chains and cassettes do wear out faster.
For some reason I’m much more likely to cross-chain when riding on Zwift than I ever do outdoors. That said, I only ever do biggie bigs, maybe because I want to be able to say I’ve ridden up the volcano (or whatever climb) entirely on the large chain ring! My bike sounds particularly unhappy in smallie smalls which is probably why I don’t use that combo
Ok guys. LOVE the channel, and haven’t raced in 20 years- but I learned to dump my front end as per the (cross country) racecourse. In a tough moment I might cross chain for a minute- but only if I know I’ll need my big front end right after. Basic? Anyway, like the PMA!!!
This video does not go over why we cross chain in the first place. The reason is head winds, that's why you need to cross chain with Big Big combos. If you live in flatlands switch to a 1X10, remove the second ring and use either a 47 or 50 tooth ring. Cross chaining in heavy cross winds eliminates the over spinning required on the small ring x big cog. I switched to a 1X10 and never looked back, no more 2 rings since I don't have any climbs here.
I was wondering why my bike was rattling so much today and my friends explained I was cross-chaining...then they sent me this video, which coincidentally and lucky for me, was posted earlier this morning.
My Viking race A350 tracks a straighter chain staying in the 34 tooth until cog 6 out of 7, then shift up to the 50 tooth and back to cog 3 to get the next higher gear in a sensible progression of 11 speeds.
How "intelligent" is Shimano Di2 in this regard anyway? Does it just stop you from using the most extreme ring combinations or is it like really optimized? I am a noob bike rider and so far I have just used one lever to make my pedaling easier and the other lever to make it harder :-) So I wish I will never have to think about it more thoroughly because the electronic shifter knows best and takes care of this all.
Sturmey Archer 3 speed this week so no issue but my lots of gears bike doesn’t like smalls not enough tension on the chain and it jumps off the derailer
SRAM designed there Red 22 single tap to run both BiggieBig and SmallySmall. The tech was referred to as JAW. Plus what is the URL to the site Alex referred to for shift optimization? I still have to set up my AXS 2x.
My rule of thumb is, for 2x groupsets, the bigger half of the cassette goes with the small chainring and the smallest with the big chainring. You can cross the middle by 1-2 sprockets but past that, it's better to change the chainring and go back a few sprockets
if im approaching an area with resting roadies, i put my gears into cross chain and pull over and take really small sips from my water bottle. i park my bike so that the chain is toward them and ill act overtly oblivious. no one has said anything yet.
Thanks Manon and Alex for an interesting video. I ordered my GCN training kit today. Now I can spread the positive message of the GCN on every bike ride. Cheers👋
I'm coming to the conclusion than small/small is inefficient since the chain slack is taken up by the derailleur jockey wheels. The more chain slack there is to take up, the more the chain has to change angles as it travels through. Also, as it does, there is more contact between the jockey wheels and chain; surely this is an efficiency. On a 'fixie', there is one angle of chain deflection but on a derailleured bike, the chain goes through three.
I worry more about wear than watts. My 105 is rubbing the front derailleur if I get out of the recommended range on the chart you brought up. That can't be good for the Chain. I also wonder about where in the stroke of the crank I should trigger the shift, especially if pedaling hard at the time. Seems like some shift are smooth as silk and others are rough. The hard jump of the chain on the rough ones probably will cause more wear to the chain and sprocket. Have you tested anything like that?
#GCN tech, question...you mentioned the watts lost to friction by cross-chaining, but while we all know keeping our drive train clean and well lubricated is important, we don't know how many actual watts can be lost by riding with a dirty rig. Could you please enlighten us? How many road (not off road) miles does it take a drive train to get dirty enough for the peeps at GCN to feel (not see) the need for a cleaning? Thanks for your answers, or thanks for pointing out which previous video covers this.
Thanks for this! I’ve been trying to get better at shifting over the winter even though I’m using a smaller cassette on my trainer. Where I have ridden in the past hasn’t required much shifting between the two front rings. So, learning how to optimize that is requiring some practice. This video was helpful!
Perhaps the answer is to look at gear ratios and adjust block and chain ring size to what you actually need..... Do you actually need 39 t or even 25 block.
I'm a novice and ref cross chaining I'm riding on the flat in the highest gear, (large ring and smallest cog?) and come to a hill I gradually go to larger cogs as I go up it, are you saying when I get to the mid point I should drop down to the smaller chain ring? I'm confused as i lose rhythm when doing so i.e. I start spinning like mad untill the hill gets steeper.
Maybe one above midpoint. But when you drop to the smaller chain ring, you also should go back down on the cog. Do the math and lay out your exact gear ratios, and it becomes very clear that there's a lot of overlap and the "optimal" gear progression requires moving both gears.
2:50 is that a specific limitation imposed by the Di2 system or does the mech just not like that combination? I'm pretty sure my old mechanical system will shift wherever I tell it to regardless of whether it's a really bad idea!
It’s an option Shimano has on their Di2 system, to help prevent cross chaining. You can change it in the E-TUBE app or software, though, which would then allow you to go the big/big or small/small route if you’d like.
I cross chained all time I, just an average bike user but always cycled fast in the highest gears yo do speed work. The chain slips a bit because I was cross chaining. I'll have to upgrade my bike anyway
I think it’s incredibly arrogant of Shimano to make a decision to prevent cross chaining on my Di2. It should be my decision to activate or deactivate the feature. Maybe Di2 isn’t as robust as claimed.... Cross chaining on Mechanical group sets is permitted; what’s the difference? Next time GCN, don’t worry about salt water and dirt during a Di2 test. Just cross chain it!!!!
On my 1997 rigid steel mtb with shimano 7 sis 3x7 I usually only go big-big when I want to get away quickly from a standstill without overloading my knees. On short climbs I can work with middle-big but on supersteep dirt hills I usually go small-2/3. So far, everything works. I'm like how annoying would it be to pay so much for a 1x12 when I can get 3x11 for less, be more efficient = higher avg speed...and I need every bit of free efficiency on this everything but efficient bike XD
1) how many times did Alex say "cross train" instead of "cross chain"? 2) I used to only use my Biggy in front, but once in Biggyxbiggy I was powering up a hill and put my mech into my rear wheel. This was the summer I purchased my new BMC
I am still running 3x on my touring/gravel bike ( old school bordering on archaic, I know). Clearly Middly Middly runs as smooth as silk but I presume that the " Don"t Cross Chain " Mantra REALLY comes from the 3x era. I mean when you go biggie smalls or littly bigs on a 3x , you know it is all kinds of wrong!
3x drive trains are not that bad, I also have bikes with this. The components are really affordable, and the gear range is huge. 2x also works for MTB, but the really fast gears are missing here because they sacrifiy speed for hill climbing.
there are some tricks for single speed ...every mm counts...like the front sprocket can be connected on the inside mount of the cranck piece...once you get a loose chain this CAN' save your life if you don't use regular brakes...
I don't crosschain simply because I can't stand the sound of it... Even if the amount of damage and wattage loss is insignificant for an at-best-average rider like me, the noise is enough to drive me a bit batty in short order. I love a nice, quiet drivetrain, and one of the easiest ways to accomplish that is to keep the chain line as straight as it can be. It maximizes efficiency, chain lubrication life (keeping it quieter for longer between cleaning and re-lubrication), and drivetrain lifespan.
Do you ever cross-chain, or do you hate it? Let us know why in the comments!👇
How about 1X vs 2X efficiency (assuming somehow equivalent gear ratios)?
2X would be a bit more efficient on the highest and lowest gears while 1X will lighter (200-300 grams on an MTB, less for a RoadBike), but will the weight saving be able to offset the loss of efficiency?
Converted my 3X9 (11-34t cassette) MTB to a 1X9 (11-40t cassette), i can hear the cross-chain friction when i am on the lowest gear and the chain changes gear when backpedalled (main symptom of cross-chaining). I wonder if i would be better-off with a 11-34t 2X...
@@sepg5084 Go for shit and you’ll loose 3 times that.
During shorter climbs, I frequently shift to lower gears on the back while leaving the front alone until I'm cross-chaining. The only downside is that I can hear the chain rubbing but the bike still shifts and handles just fine. I don't know that I've ever taken it to the extremes shown in this video, but it just isn't a big deal to cross-chain when you need a quick minute at a lower gear.
Sometimes but the furthest I go on the cassette is the second cog from the biggest one. I believe Dura Ace has a function that stops it on the second to biggest and you carnt go to biggest cog but not tried it on Ultegra yet.
Depends. I tend more to do it in the biggy-bigs position, on light gradient climbs for short periods, but I try to stay away from the extremes by at least 2 cogs. The other way around, interestingly, I go to the big ring way earlier, in the middle of the cassette, it's just easier to pick up speed and cadence, for example when you're going downhill at the top of a climb and you can virtually throw any high gear in.
I can recall a situation from yesterday's ride when I shifted back up a gear because it clearly made a difference in drivetrain noise.
At the end of the day, I have a 105 groupset, chains and cassettes are actually quite cheap but I don't want to beat on my bike too much, even though a new chain every 5k wouldn't really hurt the wallet.
Obvious you're not losing that much power if someone in the group ride is pointing it out, because they're behind you...
They're just being smart, sitting in and drafting.
@@mapk4655 no drafting is for vageeeeens
Lol 😅
Cross-chain noise is minor compared to modern free hubs! The hubs are way more annoying in my opinion.
My personal rule is quite straightforward (Shimano 105 2x10): When I'm on the 52 ring, I never use the two big ones, when I'm on 39, I don't use the two small ones. I don't want to wear out chain and sprockets too quickly...
... which is a proper strategy, as you really do not need these gears.But to be honest: When you are in a tough situation in a race or in the group, you may be forced to user these 'forbidden' gears. Imagine you are coming out of an ascent of 7% gradient and its constantly getting flatter and flatter. You are e.g. using 39/15, but in the process you will need ...14, ... 13 and even 12 or 11. If you do the 'double shift' (to, e.g. 52/16) you would loose contact to your group or even it would not work due to the high tension on the chain. Real life is not as easy as theory...
My condolences to Biggie Bigs and Smallsy Smalls. While your son passed a long time ago, he was a legend in the rap industry. Love the song his rap partner Piddly Widdly made in his honor.
basically the message of the video is ride with Biggie Smalls and Sky's the limit then. Unbelievable i know.
I miss Piddly Widdly. :(
@@KeithHeinrich
I still run 3 by on my touring/gravel bike. So I prefer Middly Middly.
P Widdly, Piddy, or Widdy.. Also made the gravel classic: "Bump, Bump, Bump" and the adventure favorite "Been around the world"
My friend told me I was cross chaining on my gravel bike. I told him It’s a 1x. His response? Well you’re basically always cross chaining then 🤦♂️
Then it cant necessarily be a problem if they make bike that purposely cross chains.
@@Snagmaster30lb Mtb powertrains differ from road powertrains.
I dont know if its enough to counter the cross chaining, but there are many small differences.
@@marcalvarez4890 very small differences.
@@Snagmaster30lb True, but differences.
@@marcalvarez4890 ok, but lol
Bike industry: Don't cross chain. Also bike industry: pushes 1X groupsets.
1x groupset have the chainring positioned in-between the big and small ring positions; thus, while your average cross chain angle may be greater, the maximum amount that you can cross chain is significantly reduced and this is where it really matters.
1x is actually really good for chain line as the increased variety of ring size means you can selected the perfect size for your riding such that you spend the majority of the time with a straight chain line.
I think it depends on the terrain.
Where I live one would either ride up or down, at least it's what I like to do.
If its mostly flat one would use the middle gears more often and 1x is more efficient.
1x is made to simplify mountain biking, front mech and additional front chainrings are inefficient in the trails
@@karlcorrz If your MTB does more miles on the back of a SUV than it does being pedalled and is only ridden in unsatisfying loops that go nowhere on purpose-designed MTB trails, then 1x is a fine solution. If your idea of a proper MTB spin involves biking in actual mountains, covering everything from fast road and fire road sections between trails to the steepest climbs you can find, with plenty of quality tech descending in between, on trails that were never intended for MTB's but accidentally are amazing to ride for anyone with the skill, all in one spin you'll need a bigger gear range. As for efficiency it's already been established here and in more scientifically rigorous tests that straight chains are more efficient. However, for the endurobro types MTB marketing is mostly aimed at, knowing how to use a front derailleur is getting looked at similarly to being able to drive a stick transmission car at this stage.
With 1x the choice is between chewing the tiny top gear sprocket up in no time because anything over 25 km/h will already have you in top gear and spinning it out, or end up having a decent top gear and having to walk up climbs that could be pedalled easily with the right bottom gear. Keep in mind that unlike on road bikes, where 11 teeth is as small as top gear goes with decent chain wrap around that gear, modern MTB drivetrains have 10 tooth top gears, of which maybe 4 teeth end up carrying the entire chain tension due to them reducing chain wrap trying to increase shifting speed to compensate for the lower wheel rpm that ever bigger and therefore ever slower turning wheels are causing, so wear will be fast.
Sadly buying a MTB that can even take a front derailleur is almost impossible at this stage, so after 25+ years mountain biking, I'm disgusted with the industry because even though Shimano make a proper 600+% range 2x12 drivetrain, I can no longer get bikes off the shelf with frames to which this drivetrain can be fitted. Shimano are a bit of a pain on this front too as XTR is the only option that allows people to get a 38 tooth big ring as part of a 38-28 chainset, which is closer to what I'm used to from 3x10 drivetrains with 27.5 or 26" wheels and this setup costs 3 times as much as 36-26 XT level chainrings, for literally no benefit bar saving a couple of grams. The idea behind this is not about me being anything like strong enough to push this top gear on everything, the idea is to make top gear high enough that I don't spend much time in it, to give it a chance to balance wear life of the tiny top gear sprocket against the lower gears that wear more slowly because of having more teeth to share the load.
@@nathanphillips875 except on my electric bike kit, where the front chainring is level with about the 6th cog. I know because bumps can pull the chain off in the lower gears.
This opening leaves the impression that Alex is out there in the English countryside warning everyone he sees of the horrors of drive train inefficiency.
That impression is entirely correct 😉
@@gcntech I feel like all the new cyclists must keep him busy.
He's the cross chaining police like Connor was looking out for supertuckers
"Beware people, beware!"
Yeah I do. Right now my Specialized bike is having big problems when I go to the Granny the chain does not shift over well. Sometimes it will not shift at all and it seizes up. Have to get off, back pedal and manually put the chain on. Have had it at a few repair shops without luck. Getting new bike next month.
I'm riding with a 50/34 on the front and a 11/34 on the back. My PB on my favourite climb (2,8km at 5,6% avg) was around 9 minutes when I was climbing on the 34 chainring. One day I decided to force myself to stay on the big ring and smashed my best time by almost 40 seconds (8:22). I felt way more efficient with a really tensed chain rather than using the same ratio but with less tension... So I kind of enjoy cross-chaining from time to time :)
For a given power and final ratio, using a larger chainring results in _lower_ chain tension.
I never ever leave the big ring unless I am on a serious climb. I am generally mid range, but wind or minor hills see me cross chaining away.
Depends on what your big ring is.. :). 48 is the sweet one for general riding.
The worse thing about cross-chaining is the damage that happens to the drivetrain. I had 2 friends running into trouble with this. One guy snapped his chain in half and had to taxi home. The other guy actually damaged two things. We found a one half of a link in the chain cracked.. and he actually broke the spring mechanism on his front/rear derailleur. He had to buy two new di2 derailleurs and a chain.. very $$ lesson. Yes where we live are tons of hills and mountains, therefore cross-chaining on biggie/biggie isnt ideal for over an hr.
You'd think that an electronic shifting system would come with the ability to prevent cross-chaining through some setting. Or are they still not quite caught up with app technology?
Going with the sprockets near the center of the cassette is my preference on my 3x7 drivetrain-riding in the second chainring most of the time as a leisure cyclist. Will switch to the big (3rd) chainring when I need to cruise near the top speed of my hybrid. Rarely need the small chainring (1st) since I almost never have steep hills to climb.
The gears are not clearly labeled on my twist shifters unfortunately. Looking down to see the chainrings helps and getting used to how the gears feel makes gear selection more intuitive and the riding experience more efficient and enjoyable.
On my bike I use only sprockets 1 and 2 when the small chainring is selected and avoid those sprockets when the big chainring is selected to avoid cross chaining. When the middle chainring (2nd) is selected any sprocket should be fine-the straighter the chain line the better of course.
I see cross chaining all the time. I never do it as I was taught not to back in the early 90's when I used to hang out at my local bike shops. I've heard from a reliable source that Simano's 3X8 mountain bike groupset was the last groupset where you could be in any gear ratio and not have any problems. Thanks.
@7:00 I agree that you really should optimize your gear ratios. When I started commuting, I realized that I was hardly ever in my 50 tooth big ring. My total weight was the biggest factor. Once I swapped out my 50 for a 46, I was able to use my entire drivetrain.
My gravel bike came with a 46-36 chainset, and I've ended up quite liking it. The smaller gap makes it easy to avoid cross-chaining and the top speed is the same as a 50-12 (which I would only reach on downhills anyway).
Some of the problem is extra friction. Another thing often overlooked is to do with vectors. If the chain is at an angle, then one (the larger) part of the vector is pulling the sprocket, but the other (smaller) part of the vector is wasted energy. This is only a small effect, but the amount will vary depending on the length of your chain stay and the size of the angle. For most purposes, in most contexts, the difference is negligible. On the road, in traffic, a quick single change to a gear that works well enough is better than a slower double change to a slightly more efficient gear.
Thanks for all of the advice, I have yet to find a channel as comprehensive yet to the point as yours
but I see a lot of pro's cross-chain on mountain stages .. perhaps because they don't have to pay for their drive trains .. lol !!
I remember one mountain stage where a (Schleck?) lost the stage because he cross-chained and then missed a shift, dropping the chain. It just shows that being a pro doesn't mean everything.
@@ericpmoss usually, it's shifting under load which causes the chain to drop or the fd not to function properly .. not cross chaining itself ..
pro's cross chain on steep climbs precisely to avoid shifting rings while under load .. maybe, just maybe, frank shifted too late while under load causing his chain to drop ..
@@ericpmoss pro means everything.
" Ollie Bridgewood OR a Time Trialist" Brilliant!
Mmm I heard that and laughed!!!
Being a pessimist retired engineer I actually did the work of freezing each frame, read the test and formed my own un obvious conclusions. In reference to causes of friction of smaller gears. The articulation of each link is greater therefore friction is increased. False. There are proportionally less links so the total articulation of the chain is the same. Ergo, if the chain has to bend 180 degrees to go around it does not matter if that is spread over a bigger or smaller gear weather that is in a derailleur, cassette, chainring. The losses are totally due to increased tension of chain from smaller cogs. (this does not hold true for derailleur gears since this is a parasitic loss not drive loss and they do not increase tension). The x1 is less efficient also due to more extreme cross chain angles and more chain length. This chain weight goes through a non circular path in the derailleur gears and also vibrates the larger derailleur/cage in all directions. All this power comes from you. Power loss is proportional to power in and rpm so loss in this test was about 2% at 95rpm crank 250w. I pedal slower and so loss will be less at 1.5%
good stuff, thx for sharing
Maybe that is why I love my AXS 1x setup so much. It's quiet all day long. 😊
But if it's 11 or 12 gears on the back, doesn't it have the same issue of the chain being at an angle to the optimal position?
@@harlanrosenthal8648 - you're probably correct, I don't usually ride much on the outer gears (inner or outer) so maybe that and the chainring being centered gives me the impression of efficiency. I do know that the drive train is quieter than my old mechanical 1x setup as well as my road 2x setup.
My introduction to cross-chaining came many years ago when my friend and I both had cheaper bikes with a triple chainset and Tourney rear derailleur - and smally-small would cause the chain to jump off the lower jockey wheel.
There is one thing that the video does not even mention: The gear ratios we use to ride most often, i.e. those in the middle of the whole gear ratio range (that means about 3:1), afford a chainring-cog-combination, that causes cross-chaining. Lets have a look at an example: 39/13 is almost the same as 53/18. Using an 11-sprocket casette with 11-23 the 14-cog is the 3rd (counting from right to left) an the chain is on the small chainring. This is cross-chaining, off course. But using the 53/18 alternative is cross-chaining as well, as the 18 cog is the 4th (counting from the left) and the chain is the big chainring. At this point you will probably regard that as a 'minor problem', but what, when the gear turns out to be a little to hard or to small? Change the chainring to avoid cross-chaining? But what is the proper gear? Given you are riding with 53/18 on a bad road with strong head wind an the gear turns out to be a little bit to hard. Which cog is the proper one after switching to the inner chainring? The answer is: 39/14. So you are forced to change chainrings AND to shift 4 times to reach the proper cog. Now the tarmac unexpectedly becomes much better and houses take a bit from the headwind. Whole procedure vice versa?
I think we should talk about real problems, not about artificially invented problems. Given that cross-chaining is a problem at all, which turned out to be not the case after 2:30 of the video. The rest - 7:30 min - is... now, I do not want to insult someone... ...
I don't have an issue with cross chaining; the gears are there to be used - so I use them; if that means I'm cross chaining, so be it.
You don’t have literally problem if your sprockets, chain, Rd can speak then they do have.
Not yet
Till that chain whips you in the back of the leg or just drops
Indeed....just get on yeah bike and ride.!
When thinking about durability, the other factor to mention is just plain old tension on the chain. All other things being equal, more chain tension will wear cog teeth and chain bushings faster (although, to be fair, it's chain tension that makes you go, too!). Thing is, the chain is actually under a bit less tension in a larger chainring than a small one. Assuming your torque on the crank is the same, the force on the chain is torque / r, where r = the moment arm of the chainring, or more simply, the radius of the chainring. Bigger rings have a bigger radius, so the tension on everything is smaller when you're in a larger ring. This is, BTW, why a big rider like me (210 lb) looks skeptically at all the road groups using mini chainrings and 10T small cogs; great way to wear out drivetrains faster!
Biggy-big also means that each link in the chain doesn’t have to bend as much around the gears, saving you over a equally but oppositely angled smally-small cross-chain. Perhaps why the losses in the big chainring aren’t as bad?
This is why I love electronic shifting. Both my Di2 and Sram Force are configured for Syncro shift which eliminates this issue.
Same here
What's slower for a short and medium climb, cross chaining or lower the power for the upshift after? I cross chain all the time with R9170 because the system makes it feel unnoticable and I don't care a lot about watts.
FWIW, because the chain lines or recumbents are so much longer than upright bicycles, the angles are all much shallower, so cross chaining doesn't much exist. Seriously. All the angles are about a third of what they are on upright bicycles.
Ever since I learned about the concept of Trimming from Trace Velo I have been crosschaining on my bike with 50Bigsy-28Big chainring-rear cogs respectively. But it should be noted that I only run a 7speed Shimano Tourney drivetrain.
What's the point of cross chaining if you can just shift to a better gear combo (unless there is no better option)?
@@sepg5084 it's because i can maintain my cadence that way
@@hucklejoko4838 I hope this isn't a stupid question, but: If you can achieve the same (or almost the same) gear ratio with a different combination, wouldn't you be at the same cadence? I know that on my 3x9 there is a wide range where I could achieve very close gear ratios on any front ring.
@@harlanrosenthal8648 i checked the math before deciding to stick with crosschaining, but long story short my Bigsy Big ratio is still slightly more than that of my 4th gear(which is the closest) when using the smaller chainring in the front.
If i go any easier I'd be out spinning and therefore losing speed
Who the hell is giving another rider grief about what gear they’re in? It’s be the last time I rode with them I can assure you!
A friend and I were joined by another guy on a ride and he really struggled up the hills. In the end, we had to shorten the ride because he bonked big-time. As we ambled home, he was still staying on the big ring, even up the steeper climbs. When I finally suggested he dropped down to the small ring, he said will that make a difference?
@tim rawson You do realize friends tend to give each other hell on a friendly manner and laugh about it even if it is true, right? You sound like miserable company to be with...
@@sepg5084 everyone doesn’t do that though. It’s common some places and some places it’s really rude.
@@sepg5084 We both know that what you’re talking about, and what’s in the video, are two different things.
I have my gears displayed on my garmin and forbid myself from entering the biggest two cogs when in the big ring and the smallest three cogs when in the small ring. Since I have been doing this my chain and cassette life has increased significantly.
I do the exact same thing.
@@jefferywalker9809 I thought gears on the garmin was a gimmick at first but now I couldn’t go back! 👌🏻
2:54 at least with my good ol 105 I can crosschain however much I like 😉
105 is all you ever need in life #changemymind
@@mrendo4742 Agreed...why pay more???
Doesn't the chain rub on the front derailleur at some point? I am riding 105 and that's what's happening on my bike, possibly time to re-adjust it? I am new to this and particularly this group set.
@@Charles_Bro-son check for adjustment and use the trims built into the group set.
@@mrendo4742 agreed, I have Ultegra 6800 on one bike and 105 5800 on my other, both are brilliant, ultegra feels no different (brakes are disc in one and rim in the other so can compare those but the gearing is great) I only got the ultegra for one as it was a steal on eBay and comparable in cost to 105 so figured I may as well, but I would never buy a bike because of the “better” group set the costs simply don’t make sense unless you’re actually racing at a high level
Great video, I've always wondered this, especially that bit about the best time to shift between chainrings! Facts are facts, but I feel like I have a ton more leverage climbing hills than going with a more reasonable gear ratio in the smaller chainring. Probably still going to cross chain!
So cross training for me works best in certain situations and I know its bad but here is why. I have Campy 50/34 front & a 11/30 in the back.
SOMETIMES I am going up a slight incline in the 50/29 combo & I need just a bit easier gear so I go to the 50/30 w the goal of keeping my cadence high & getting to top of incline w good speed & high cadence.
The very moment I drop to the 34/12 ( or something near that gearing) I INSTANTLY drop 4-6mph & my cadence gets all wanky.
So for me, even though I know its bad for the expensive campy chain, sometimes I have to cross train to keep my speed and cadence high
50/30 is closer to 34/20, so 34/12 will definitely have you mashing your way up. Not only that, going from 50/30 to 34/12 requires shifting through the entire cassette. If you shift to the small chainring, you can just shift up 2 or 3 times on the cassette to get a similar gear ratio.
I think smallsy small is worse than biggsy big as well because efficiency is lost through friction in the chain rollers themselves, and on smallsy small the chain has to do an awful lot more bending to get round the smaller cogs, as well as through the “closed” derailleur with its far more acute angles, than on a bigger cog. Tighter bends are more friction and less efficient.
Used correctly your 22spd bike is actually 11spd, that’s how I consider mine anyway.
It should have been mentioned in the video that if you cross chain for example big / big then there is often an identical gear ratio available by being in the small chainring and further down the cassette, as gear ratios are repeated in many 22spd drivetrains.
With a 22spd bike you have a lower lowest gear and a higher highest gear. So a 22spd bike is better for climbing and going downhill on tarmac.
I'd rather take a 2x groupset.
I wish you would have had the friction numbers for a 1x setup. I wouldn't be surprised if there's a lot of friction in the smallest and largest cogs...
I cross chain all the time, no wonder my gears wear so fast.. will need to focus more on chain efficiency ~ thanks GCN!
I am in a particular windy area. Sometimes around here the wind can gust 20-30 mph. If you are riding in those conditions it is important to use the smallest ring in the front and then move up and down on the cassette for different conditions. If you use the big ring it gets very hard.
And what was that "black on black on black" Pinarello? I love it!! Reminded me of a Swatch I had in the eighties.
You had a black on black on blac Swatch? Sounds dope, now i want one. My sister loved Pop Swatch's when I was a kid.
Very nice dynamics between this two 👌🏻
8:00 So with electronic shifters you can just program *ideal* shifting sequence and use only one lever to shift from the lowest to the highest ratio.
2 cogs difference - not a big deal, I think
Me, riding my 1x: "I don't have such weaknesses"
Honestly I should have gotten myself a 1x drivetrain. I never use the big ring, so I also can't use half of my cassette to avoid cross chaining 😅
wow took me all spring to figure this out ..I didnt realize I had missed a GCN vid until I looked at the date and realized I had something else on ,y plate that day. Great vid learned a lot.
When I was in shape, 52 x 32 on minor inclines was glorious.
In the olde days this was a little more risky with short cage rear derailleurs. Depending on the spread of gear ratios it was often necessary to balance chain length with the amount of slack to get into a range of gears on the back while using the big chainring while at the same time not having it drape loosely at the other end on the smaller one. This was more common on triple chainring setups. Biggie biggie in those cases was simply not an option unless you wanted to test if your chain would explode before something else in the drivetrain.
Just today I did cross chaining to test it. I rode "biggy-big" on a slightly climb just to avoid shifting front derailleur. So you're right - the rear derailleur was worn out quietly fast. Somehow it bent in the spokes and blocked the rear wheel. I don't cross chaining anymore. Never
Ollie Bridgewood OR a time trialist. Damn, stone cold.
That was particularly savage 😂
😂
Nice balance of fact and fun on this one. Thanks👍
I don't ride with a cross chain any more because I feel the increase in friction. I do store my bike with a cross chain from smallest front ring to the smallest back chain ring . This is to make sure my rear derailleur's spring isn't loaded too much for long periods of time .
Expensive as well. Due to Corona, prices for chains and cassettes have risen 25% !!
Great video, remember to stay the hell off the roads at rush hour.
I learned not to cross chain at 10 when i got my first 3x5 bike. Havent ever done it ever since. Only onstance I momentarily cross chain is when I'm at a stop or red light. I always drop down to my smallest gear (small ring-big cog) when i'm stopped, makes it wasier to go away. I'll start, then have a couple pedal strokes on biggie bigs before getting back to my standard gears.
Don’t care about efficient hugely, just not wearing out components I think?
The two things are directly related. The most common model for quantifying wear in engineering is to consider it proportional to the energy dissipated by friction. And you minimize this dissipation when the efficiency is highest.
The big problem isn't efficiency or noise, but drivetrain life. You'll wear out your chain, cassettes and chainrings much faster by cross-chaining, which can get pretty expensive. Chains get incredibly rigid when pushed sideways so just imagine the stress and wear it places on the cogs and rings, not to mention chain side plates and pins.
I'd usually move to small-small just before reaching a climb, to keep speed but not need to change the front under load. If your chain is too small for big-big it just means it wasn't built properly.
I never cross chained and i almost never used my big ring until i switched from 130bcd 52-39 to 110bcd 46-34. Now I'm constantly doing it, and chains and cassettes do wear out faster.
For some reason I’m much more likely to cross-chain when riding on Zwift than I ever do outdoors. That said, I only ever do biggie bigs, maybe because I want to be able to say I’ve ridden up the volcano (or whatever climb) entirely on the large chain ring! My bike sounds particularly unhappy in smallie smalls which is probably why I don’t use that combo
Ok guys. LOVE the channel, and haven’t raced in 20 years- but I learned to dump my front end as per the (cross country) racecourse. In a tough moment I might cross chain for a minute- but only if I know I’ll need my big front end right after. Basic? Anyway, like the PMA!!!
Black clothing, Black bike is so dangerous on the road guys, you need some bright gear to wear. 🤔🤔
Alex, you can get around the Di2 gear restriction by using a custom cassette setting in the ETube app...
Thank you! I hate how Shimano made that decision for me! I
This video does not go over why we cross chain in the first place. The reason is head winds, that's why you need to cross chain with Big Big combos. If you live in flatlands switch to a 1X10, remove the second ring and use either a 47 or 50 tooth ring. Cross chaining in heavy cross winds eliminates the over spinning required on the small ring x big cog. I switched to a 1X10 and never looked back, no more 2 rings since I don't have any climbs here.
What's the best pedal position for the bike vault? For Steam Locomotives it's rods down. So maybe 6 o'clock on a bike?
With the newest 1x12 , don't you have the same issue of the chain being at an angle to the cassette gear and rubbing against the side?
I was wondering why my bike was rattling so much today and my friends explained I was cross-chaining...then they sent me this video, which coincidentally and lucky for me, was posted earlier this morning.
My Viking race A350 tracks a straighter chain staying in the 34 tooth until cog 6 out of 7, then shift up to the 50 tooth and back to cog 3 to get the next higher gear in a sensible progression of 11 speeds.
If you're running SRAM you can cross-chain without grinding your front mech with the chain. Still less efficient but not as damaging as Shimano.
How "intelligent" is Shimano Di2 in this regard anyway? Does it just stop you from using the most extreme ring combinations or is it like really optimized? I am a noob bike rider and so far I have just used one lever to make my pedaling easier and the other lever to make it harder :-) So I wish I will never have to think about it more thoroughly because the electronic shifter knows best and takes care of this all.
Sturmey Archer 3 speed this week so no issue but my lots of gears bike doesn’t like smalls not enough tension on the chain and it jumps off the derailer
SRAM designed there Red 22 single tap to run both BiggieBig and SmallySmall. The tech was referred to as JAW.
Plus what is the URL to the site Alex referred to for shift optimization? I still have to set up my AXS 2x.
My rule of thumb is, for 2x groupsets, the bigger half of the cassette goes with the small chainring and the smallest with the big chainring. You can cross the middle by 1-2 sprockets but past that, it's better to change the chainring and go back a few sprockets
So if I have a 2x9, I can be in the big ring for gears 9,8,7,6,5,4, but should not move into 3,2,1?
if im approaching an area with resting roadies, i put my gears into cross chain and pull over and take really small sips from my water bottle. i park my bike so that the chain is toward them and ill act overtly oblivious. no one has said anything yet.
Thanks Manon and Alex for an interesting video. I ordered my GCN training kit today. Now I can spread the positive message of the GCN on every bike ride. Cheers👋
I'm coming to the conclusion than small/small is inefficient since the chain slack is taken up by the derailleur jockey wheels. The more chain slack there is to take up, the more the chain has to change angles as it travels through. Also, as it does, there is more contact between the jockey wheels and chain; surely this is an efficiency. On a 'fixie', there is one angle of chain deflection but on a derailleured bike, the chain goes through three.
my badly indexed gears don't even allow me to cross chain
YAY! I can continue climbing on the 53!
I worry more about wear than watts. My 105 is rubbing the front derailleur if I get out of the recommended range on the chart you brought up. That can't be good for the Chain. I also wonder about where in the stroke of the crank I should trigger the shift, especially if pedaling hard at the time. Seems like some shift are smooth as silk and others are rough. The hard jump of the chain on the rough ones probably will cause more wear to the chain and sprocket. Have you tested anything like that?
#GCN tech, question...you mentioned the watts lost to friction by cross-chaining, but while we all know keeping our drive train clean and well lubricated is important, we don't know how many actual watts can be lost by riding with a dirty rig. Could you please enlighten us? How many road (not off road) miles does it take a drive train to get dirty enough for the peeps at GCN to feel (not see) the need for a cleaning? Thanks for your answers, or thanks for pointing out which previous video covers this.
What about 1x systems? Surely cross chaining is inevitable on them?
So having fewer gears reduces wear so parts last longer. Now we know why the bike industry is always pushing for more gears.
Thanks for this! I’ve been trying to get better at shifting over the winter even though I’m using a smaller cassette on my trainer. Where I have ridden in the past hasn’t required much shifting between the two front rings. So, learning how to optimize that is requiring some practice. This video was helpful!
Perhaps the answer is to look at gear ratios and adjust block and chain ring size to what you actually need.....
Do you actually need 39 t or even 25 block.
great video. I always wanted to know this stuff!
I'm a novice and ref cross chaining I'm riding on the flat in the highest gear, (large ring and smallest cog?) and come to a hill I gradually go to larger cogs as I go up it, are you saying when I get to the mid point I should drop down to the smaller chain ring? I'm confused as i lose rhythm when doing so i.e. I start spinning like mad untill the hill gets steeper.
Maybe one above midpoint. But when you drop to the smaller chain ring, you also should go back down on the cog. Do the math and lay out your exact gear ratios, and it becomes very clear that there's a lot of overlap and the "optimal" gear progression requires moving both gears.
Guilty your honor😀I m a biggy big when going up the puig major in Majorca ,I just stay in a nice rtythmn
Nice video and analysis. How are you getting on with the Magene P325CS Power meters? Waiting for GCNs review.
2:50 is that a specific limitation imposed by the Di2 system or does the mech just not like that combination?
I'm pretty sure my old mechanical system will shift wherever I tell it to regardless of whether it's a really bad idea!
It’s an option Shimano has on their Di2 system, to help prevent cross chaining. You can change it in the E-TUBE app or software, though, which would then allow you to go the big/big or small/small route if you’d like.
mechanical derailleurs don't have such protection, they have no electronic brain, only a human one who has to coordinate it
It has the slightly awkward sounding name Gear Position Control.
I cross chained all time I, just an average bike user but always cycled fast in the highest gears yo do speed work. The chain slips a bit because I was cross chaining. I'll have to upgrade my bike anyway
Very interesting and helpful. Thank you. 👍
I just try to avoid the extreme angles on my 3x10. But even then its not as bad as a 1x12 because I have enough options to avoid it.
I think it’s incredibly arrogant of Shimano to make a decision to prevent cross chaining on my Di2. It should be my decision to activate or deactivate the feature.
Maybe Di2 isn’t as robust as claimed.... Cross chaining on Mechanical group sets is permitted; what’s the difference?
Next time GCN, don’t worry about salt water and dirt during a Di2 test. Just cross chain it!!!!
On my 1997 rigid steel mtb with shimano 7 sis 3x7 I usually only go big-big when I want to get away quickly from a standstill without overloading my knees. On short climbs I can work with middle-big but on supersteep dirt hills I usually go small-2/3. So far, everything works. I'm like how annoying would it be to pay so much for a 1x12 when I can get 3x11 for less, be more efficient = higher avg speed...and I need every bit of free efficiency on this everything but efficient bike XD
1) how many times did Alex say "cross train" instead of "cross chain"?
2) I used to only use my Biggy in front, but once in Biggyxbiggy I was powering up a hill and put my mech into my rear wheel. This was the summer I purchased my new BMC
I am still running 3x on my touring/gravel bike ( old school bordering on archaic, I know). Clearly Middly Middly runs as smooth as silk but I presume that the " Don"t Cross Chain " Mantra REALLY comes from the 3x era. I mean when you go biggie smalls or littly bigs on a 3x , you know it is all kinds of wrong!
3x drive trains are not that bad, I also have bikes with this. The components are really affordable, and the gear range is huge.
2x also works for MTB, but the really fast gears are missing here because they sacrifiy speed for hill climbing.
there are some tricks for single speed ...every mm counts...like the front sprocket can be connected on the inside mount of the cranck piece...once you get a loose chain this CAN' save your life if you don't use regular brakes...
After just replacing a 105/Ultegra on my old Roubaix with a Chorus 11 speed, I hope to reduce the time I crosschain in the future.
I try not to cross-chain, although I always do in crit races up the hills.
I don't crosschain simply because I can't stand the sound of it... Even if the amount of damage and wattage loss is insignificant for an at-best-average rider like me, the noise is enough to drive me a bit batty in short order. I love a nice, quiet drivetrain, and one of the easiest ways to accomplish that is to keep the chain line as straight as it can be. It maximizes efficiency, chain lubrication life (keeping it quieter for longer between cleaning and re-lubrication), and drivetrain lifespan.