98koukile

A few years back I transitioned to road(boring but a good workout) after a knee injury in hopes that I could rehab myself back into mountain biking and the impact that goes along with it. Fast forward to this winter and I have full use at the gym again and am participating in club sports with no side effects so I decided I wanted a bike for spring. My last bike was a 3x8 Sugar 3+. Looking for something a little more plush I found and purchased a 26" Slayer 70 with a Vanilla RLC fork...

It's not the latest and greatest but I'm testing the waters with this frame. I did the gear calculations from my old 11-28 20/32/42 and the options I've come up with after a little research are as follows:
SLX 1x10 with the 36T cassette and SLX brakes $195
SLX 1x10 with a modified 40T cassette and SLX Brakes $265
XT 1x11 with the 42T cassette and SLX/XT brakes $285/350

The area in question is MA/CT so some sand, some hardpack, rocks/roots, lots of rolling hills but elevation changes are moderate at best. Whichever I choose will be mated with a race face narrow wide 30/32T and I'm hoping will transition to a newer frameset after a few seasons if everything goes well. I'm not against a 2x but I'd really like to try 1x first and worst case I can put a small ring on my crank for a manual bail out gear until I add an FD. Even with road biking I'm skeptical that I could handle 11-36 with a 30T but I don't have much to go on so maybe I'm wrong. What do you guys think? Been out of the game for a minute so I'm looking for some insight.

98koukile

Maybe I'm asking the wrong questions or being redundant here but my main point of concern is trying to save a few bucks going 1x10 and finding that 30/36 is way too far from a granny gear for riding.

Canker

Sunrance sells a 11-42 10 speed cassette for around $75. If you are going Shimano and 10 speed I believe the thing to do is go ahead and buy an 11 speed RD since it is already made to work with the wide range cassettes and works fine with a 10 speed shifter. The 10 speed shimano RD has trouble with cassettes over 36, 40 is probably ok but most people that go to 42 have to mod their 10 speed RD. Sram 10 speed RDs don't seem to have that issue.

The only real advantage of 11 speed setups is the 11-40/42 cassettes but now that Sunrace and Praxis make those for 10 speed that advantage is gone.

SLX is the sweet spot IMO for shimano brakes and most of the drivetrain, I'd probably swing for the XT cassette if you go 11 speed.

Maelochs

Seems to me that if you couldn't Just About ride everything in the middle ring on your 3x8 Sugar, the approximately 20 percent gain with 30x36 wouldn't cut it. On the other hand, 30x40 is like a 35 percent gain (very rough numbers) and I think would be all you might need.

I have a 3x9 and I cannot help wondering whether I would enjoy riding more if I never needed to worry about front shifting. I will be interested in hearing how this works out for you.

98koukile

I was all but 100% set on the SLX brakes and I ended up finding an M8000 I spec B front shifter so that was the icing on the cake. I decided to try 11-42 with a 32T front NW for now. The cost was so close it didn't seem worth it to experiment with 1x10, if I were going 2x SLX would have definitely been on my radar.

98koukile

Well it's all built up and so far I'm loving the 11 speed. I'm going to hit the dirt today but I don't foresee any issues after doing a few tests rides and setting up geometry.