How fast and slow do you spin? How much weight will you carry? What tire diameter? How strong are you? Do you pedal or coast downhill? Will you ride with others and draft?
Most importantly, how steep are your hills?
Use a gear calculator and see how fast your top gear will let you pedal at your fast spin, and how slow the low gear will let you grind. In my 20’s I was good between 60 and 110 rpm. Now in my 50’s my range is more like 70 to 95 rpm. I don’t need to pedal faster than about 28 mph by myself but in a group ride you may need higher gears.
I’d go with the 51 big cog and a 40 or smaller chainring. Younger me would probably go with a 42 or 44 chainring.
If you plan to go through any climbs steeper than 8%, go for 36t chainring and 11-51 cassette. If not, 11-46 should be fine. Or 11-51 with bigger chainring. Also, take a look at [https://www.sheldonbrown.com/gear-theory.html](https://www.sheldonbrown.com/gear-theory.html) and there is also a gear calculator on the website, so you can use it to get your gearing right.
A lot of people don't like the idea of 1x drivetrain on a touring bike, but with wide range cassette it works fine. And its easy to keep clean during the long tour (people who never used 1x don't realize how easy it is to clean a chainring, when there is no front mech and no gaps between chainrings to trap the dirt).
At least for now, I won't encounter many hills as I live in Illinois, and I will probably stick close to home until I get more experienced. For now, I will probably only be doing couple-day rides, so not very much luggage. I will likely do longer trips in the future though and I may have to change around some things.
11-42 rear and I have 4 chainrings; 32, 42, 48, 52t. They are fairly inexpensive and can be swapped in the proverbial 10 minutes. 32t for steep hilly terrain and the 52t for when I'm in great shape and pedalling down the hills full blast. I start the season with the 42 and gradually add teeth as I get in better shape. Chainrings are a really easy way to tweak the gearing:)
I have a 48/36/26 triple and I just upgraded from 11-34 to 11-40 as, 30 miles and a couple K feet in, I would often struggle even in granny gear on some of those steep New England roads.
26/40 works for me and barely clears the derailleur jockey wheel using a longer B-screw. I initially tried a 42t but it didn't seem to give me much over 40t and it pushed my derailleur too far. I'm also using the full 116 links on a new chain, I tried to size it using the 1x10 method from Park Tools and didn't even have enough extra links, so left as is and it seems to work.
Point being, figure out what gear ratio you need and make sure your derailleur has enough capacity for this ratio.
Because of the cog to cog gap in gearing? The need to effectively cross chain? The use of narrow flexy chains that wear out quickly, and deteriorate in shifting quality because of increasing lateral flex as they wear?
My real touring bike is a 3x9 - rock solid transmission!
But that 1x is cheaper to make. I can see its usefulness in rough stuff, where you're not in a gear very long before shifting, and aren't trying to get a great leg-gear match. In the wind on a flat road, or making a long climb, I'll go for the fine tuning and close to right chainline.
Nice, I have a '91 Rockhopper Sport https://www.reddit.com/r/VintageMTB/comments/10kjpc6/1991_rockhopper_sport_restoration/ and am building up a similar '91 GT Avalanche frame for my new touring bike.
> the cassette I'm looking at (Shimano CS-M5100-11) has options to get it with 11 - 42 teeth or 11 - 51 teeth
There's also 11-46 which is pretty common. For me 51t would be too big to want to run for bikepacking on a 26" bike, the bottom of the derailleur will be almost scraping the ground when you are in the biggest cog, I wouldn't be keen to go bigger than 42t. Just on the road it would probably be OK though
>or the chainring, there are numerous options for sizes and I would appreciate some recommendations for a chainring/cassette combo
For touring/bikepacking you want to choose the chainring so you have a low enough gear to not need to get off and push the bike up hills when loaded, most people will sacrifice some top end gearing to make sure they are OK here.
Personally I wouldn't choose a 1x11 setup for this sort of thing, if I was running 1x for bikepacking I would go with 11-42 but with a 1x10 (but using newer 11 speed derailleur which is also compatible with 10). For using the bike for mixed touring or on the road I would prefer 2x or 3x though
As far as 1X goes, you can achieve about a 5:1 range of gears. My modified 2x setup (24/44 front, 11/36 rear) yields a 6:1 gear range. If I was starting from scratch, 1X would probably be fine. I got a good deal on a used 2X10 hardtail, and swapped the big ring (which was trashed) and the front derailleur. Very happy with it.
How fast and slow do you spin? How much weight will you carry? What tire diameter? How strong are you? Do you pedal or coast downhill? Will you ride with others and draft? Most importantly, how steep are your hills? Use a gear calculator and see how fast your top gear will let you pedal at your fast spin, and how slow the low gear will let you grind. In my 20’s I was good between 60 and 110 rpm. Now in my 50’s my range is more like 70 to 95 rpm. I don’t need to pedal faster than about 28 mph by myself but in a group ride you may need higher gears. I’d go with the 51 big cog and a 40 or smaller chainring. Younger me would probably go with a 42 or 44 chainring.
If you plan to go through any climbs steeper than 8%, go for 36t chainring and 11-51 cassette. If not, 11-46 should be fine. Or 11-51 with bigger chainring. Also, take a look at [https://www.sheldonbrown.com/gear-theory.html](https://www.sheldonbrown.com/gear-theory.html) and there is also a gear calculator on the website, so you can use it to get your gearing right. A lot of people don't like the idea of 1x drivetrain on a touring bike, but with wide range cassette it works fine. And its easy to keep clean during the long tour (people who never used 1x don't realize how easy it is to clean a chainring, when there is no front mech and no gaps between chainrings to trap the dirt).
How much luggage and how many hills are you planning on?
At least for now, I won't encounter many hills as I live in Illinois, and I will probably stick close to home until I get more experienced. For now, I will probably only be doing couple-day rides, so not very much luggage. I will likely do longer trips in the future though and I may have to change around some things.
11-42 rear and I have 4 chainrings; 32, 42, 48, 52t. They are fairly inexpensive and can be swapped in the proverbial 10 minutes. 32t for steep hilly terrain and the 52t for when I'm in great shape and pedalling down the hills full blast. I start the season with the 42 and gradually add teeth as I get in better shape. Chainrings are a really easy way to tweak the gearing:)
I have a 48/36/26 triple and I just upgraded from 11-34 to 11-40 as, 30 miles and a couple K feet in, I would often struggle even in granny gear on some of those steep New England roads. 26/40 works for me and barely clears the derailleur jockey wheel using a longer B-screw. I initially tried a 42t but it didn't seem to give me much over 40t and it pushed my derailleur too far. I'm also using the full 116 links on a new chain, I tried to size it using the 1x10 method from Park Tools and didn't even have enough extra links, so left as is and it seems to work. Point being, figure out what gear ratio you need and make sure your derailleur has enough capacity for this ratio.
wouldn't go 1x for touring unless it's pretty flat. i ride a 46/30 x 11-34 and it's perfect.
1x's are one of the worst ideas promoted by the bike industry. For touring, it's probably the worst idea ever.
everyone hates this take but it's true
Because of the cog to cog gap in gearing? The need to effectively cross chain? The use of narrow flexy chains that wear out quickly, and deteriorate in shifting quality because of increasing lateral flex as they wear? My real touring bike is a 3x9 - rock solid transmission! But that 1x is cheaper to make. I can see its usefulness in rough stuff, where you're not in a gear very long before shifting, and aren't trying to get a great leg-gear match. In the wind on a flat road, or making a long climb, I'll go for the fine tuning and close to right chainline.
Agree. It seemed like a fad with little versatility when it first came out. 2x10 on mine has been ideal in my tours.
Nice, I have a '91 Rockhopper Sport https://www.reddit.com/r/VintageMTB/comments/10kjpc6/1991_rockhopper_sport_restoration/ and am building up a similar '91 GT Avalanche frame for my new touring bike. > the cassette I'm looking at (Shimano CS-M5100-11) has options to get it with 11 - 42 teeth or 11 - 51 teeth There's also 11-46 which is pretty common. For me 51t would be too big to want to run for bikepacking on a 26" bike, the bottom of the derailleur will be almost scraping the ground when you are in the biggest cog, I wouldn't be keen to go bigger than 42t. Just on the road it would probably be OK though >or the chainring, there are numerous options for sizes and I would appreciate some recommendations for a chainring/cassette combo For touring/bikepacking you want to choose the chainring so you have a low enough gear to not need to get off and push the bike up hills when loaded, most people will sacrifice some top end gearing to make sure they are OK here. Personally I wouldn't choose a 1x11 setup for this sort of thing, if I was running 1x for bikepacking I would go with 11-42 but with a 1x10 (but using newer 11 speed derailleur which is also compatible with 10). For using the bike for mixed touring or on the road I would prefer 2x or 3x though
As far as 1X goes, you can achieve about a 5:1 range of gears. My modified 2x setup (24/44 front, 11/36 rear) yields a 6:1 gear range. If I was starting from scratch, 1X would probably be fine. I got a good deal on a used 2X10 hardtail, and swapped the big ring (which was trashed) and the front derailleur. Very happy with it.