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Comment by hvdm | Hacker News Reader

For mountain bikes and race bikes, this might actually be true. I used to have an MTB with stainless steel sprockets. Never needed to change them. Nowadays, they are mostly aluminium, I think. Furthermore newer bikes have more gears typically. The rear cassette used to be 7 speed, now 10 or 11 is not uncommon. This means narrower chains. Also chain may be lighter now, especially the high-end ones.

Lighter bikes are definitely more fun to ride, but probably at some cost....

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You can still get 6-7-8 speed rear cassettes (which use a common 6-7-8 speed chain size) if you're worried about chain durability and don't care about the extra range. In general 10/11 speed parts are still more expensive than 6/7/8 or 9-speed parts.

The great thing about 10/11 speed cassettes is that you can go single on the front end. I did that three years ago, and man is it better.

So I sacrifised the very highest and the very lowest gear compared to my old 3x9, but this thing never drops the chain off the front end, there is no front derailleur that always gets bent and fails to shift properly, and there are no awkward momentum-bleeding crazy shift-down-one, shift-up-the-other moves. And you save money, weight and complexity, meaning less maintenance and less failures.

> The great thing about 10/11 speed cassettes is that you can go single on the front end. I did that three years ago, and man is it better.

Well, maybe if you live somewhere pretty flat. Or are willing to give up some high-end range (>25 mph). 10/11 speed cassettes generally only have a few teeth wider range than a ~7 speed, for example (e.g., you can get a 13-28 7-speed and the bigger 11 speeds are 11-32 (road)) . Mostly, the jumps are just much closer together, which makes for a smoother shift and easier to find a comfortable gear at a given effort.

> So I sacrifised the very highest and the very lowest gear compared to my old 3x9, but this thing never drops the chain off the front end, there is no front derailleur that always gets bent and fails to shift properly, and there are no awkward momentum-bleeding crazy shift-down-one, shift-up-the-other moves. And you save money, weight and complexity, meaning less maintenance and less failures.

Yeah, there are definitely some benefits! In my area (Seattle) with my level of fitness, I'm a fan of 2x front cogs.

Yeah, I don't know about road bikes, I run a 10 speed 11-34 MTB cassette in a low-end downhill rear derailleur (Shimano Zee). My area is not exactly flat, I guess I make up for it by being an old squats addict. It's good enough for light trail use for me, even with two kids in the bike trailer.

Yeah, 11-34 is a bit wider and you probably aren't trying to push 25 mph on a MTB :-).

I wouldn't care if the chain is heavier. The scary stories I heard from what happens if the chain falls apart are enough for me. I would even pay more. No problem.

However, when I asked the guys in the shop, they had nothing like that.

I've had a chain break once in probably 30k miles of riding, and only because I'd monkeyed with it (taken links out when converting to 1x7 speeds). Pros put unreal amounts of torque on equipment that's crazy light, and their chains break very rarely. Not something I'd worry about.

Pros also get their chains changed as frequently as they want. I doubt any pros are riding 2000 miles per chain like plenty of amateurs do.

Also the biggest pro I've ever heard of is Magnus Backstedt at 6'4 and 207lbs. He's a GIANT compared to everyone else on the pro tour. "Big" Tom Boonen only weighs 180lbs and Lance Armstrong was 165. Pros have really good power for their weight, but in absolute numbers the power isn't that excessive.

If you want to see people who are tough on gear, you have to look at track riders. That's where a 1400W rider isn't anything special and 1800W+ starts to become impressive. Also since they're on single gear bikes the torque they put down at low speeds to accelerate is absolutely insane.

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