I’ve been interested in moving the Mukluk to a 1×10 setup for a while now, and the culmination of a few things made me finally do it. Specifically, moving to 1×10 on this bike allows…
…more chain/tire clearance as I want to use 45NRTH Vanhelga this winter, and they need another 3mm on each side versus the Hüsker Dü.
…no more needing to keep 9-speed parts around.
…lighter weight / simplicity.
…less chain slap with a clutch derailleur.
…the 9-speed parts from the Mukluk to make the Salsa El Mariachi that I’m trying to sell into a geared bike.
This evening, after replacing the cracked Hope freehub I installed the parts and thus far everything seems to be working fine. I also removed the old cable-tied tube and wrapped the chainstay with Scotch 2228 to further cut down on noise, should any slap persist. Shifting to the upper part of the cassette is a bit stiff, this appears to be from the very stiff clutch derailleur. I suspect that in actual use it’ll be smoother to shift.
The biggest downside to a 1x setup is reduced range, which could be a problem in winter when I want to spin slowly on snowy climbs. It turns out that going to a 30t chainring and 11-36t cassette provides a very similar range to the 32-22t chainrings and 11-34t cassette that I previously had. Specifically, the original 2×9 setup ranged from 65% to 291%, while 1×10 is 83% to 273%. This means that I lose the two lowest gears (65% and 75%) along with the one top end gear (291%), but I think this’ll be a fine trade-off for the benefits. If this isn’t sufficient I can add a 40t or 42t add-on cog (such as those from OneUp Components or Wolf Tooth Components) and bring the lowest gearing to 75% or 71%, respectively.
The parts used for this were as follows:
- Race Face 30t 104 BCD Narrow/Wide Chainring
- Shimano XT 11-36 Cassette
- SRAM X9 Type 2.1 Medium Cage Derailleur
- SRAM X9 10-Speed Trigger Shifter
- SRAM PC 1051 Chain
Big thanks to Rochester Bike Shop for setting me up with these parts on short notice.
Weight was brought down another 0.9 pounds to 28.86 pounds (photo) beyond what the On-One Carbon Fatty Fork accomplished. If all goes as hoped I’ll get to try this out on some northern Michigan single track this upcoming weekend.
