Bike Stuff

I had a 2019 Salsa Cutthroat with a SRAM Force 1×11 setup that I wanted to get a bit lower gearing for steep hills around here. Not worried about increasing the top end. Didn’t want to replace the rear wheel which has the HG style freehub used for the last 20+ years on 8, 9, and 10 and some 11-speed setups. So, what’s the big deal? Just put a big cassette on. They make plenty of them these days. Well… Kinda. Cassette availability: SRAM’s HG-compatible cassettes stop at 42t. I have that and want at least 50T Hubs: Most large cassettes require an XD driver on the freehub. Some hubs can be changed easily, some maybe, some not. Mine was in the ‘can’t find one’ category Derailleur: The SRAM Force 1 (and most other road derailleurs) isn’t rated for cassette cogs that big. The longer cage varieties like this one can get to 42 but some only to the upper 30s. Also, the derailleur’s total tooth takeup (difference between largest and smallest) gets strained beyond ~37t. 50-11 = 39T to take up

The “Impossible”: 9-speed to 11-speed conversion Goal: Give a 2002 Klein Quantum a lower granny gear and an update. It came with a Shimano 105 5500 9 speed road triple chainring setup with a granny gear of 32 gear inches. In 2002, this is how you got both low gearing and wide range. However, it is still significantly higher than either my gravel or mountain bikes. Of course, being a road bike, it also topped out at 115 inches for speed in the flats. This is much higher than the gravel 1×11 (88in) or even the mountain triple (100). But things have changed in the world of drivetrains in the last 20 years. Let's go for a bit of a journey into the changes in road componentry in the last two decades: The most notable change has been the ability to put wide-range cassettes on the back. Back in 2002, this bike was equipped with a conventional (for the time) 12-25t cassette to go with a less conventional (on a non-touring bike) 52-42-30 triple set of chainrings. Modern non-race road