I have a 2015 giant reign and I want to find an affordable way to convert my bike to a 1x drivetrain, while maintaining the general gear ratios for climbing. Can I just change my cassette, chain ring, and chain? Or will a new derailleur be necessary?
by Reep_2023
9 Comments
Prob will need a new groupset. Sometimes eagle GX11s are used for pretty cheap
Take off your front gear shifter lever. Adjust the front derailleur to be on the front gear you prefer and just use it as a chain guide and you have a 1×10. I did this on my 3×8. It also frees up room for a standard dropper post lever where the front shifter used to be.
Bang a single 1x ring up front is cheap. 2nd hand NX otherwise I think you might need to change the free hub body, which will require changing the wheels if they’re that old.
Know how you feel My 2017 bike is getting old enough I’m starting to worry about compatibility and all that.
Back when people did cheap 1x conversions as the norm they just accepted climbing would suck. You can throw a narrow wide ring up front and drop the 3x for simplicity but climbing will be rough.
If you actually want a full range you’re going to want a wide range cassette. You’re probably going to need a new derailleur at that point too.
SRAM’s NX group works with a classic cassette body and will do all of the above.
An 11-50 cassette has roughly the same range as a 2×10 system. You just need to change your cranks (but if you already have a crank that allows you to take 1 chaining off then you’re alright), shifter and derailleur probably. You can get the same range with 1×11 than with 1×12.
I’d suggest getting an xt shifter and cheaper deore derailleur, replace the jockey wheels of the derailleur with a pair of xt ones. They’re like $15 and the shifting will be the same as an xt derailleur whereas the slx and deore shifters are nowhere near XT smoothness.
There are Shimano Deore 1×10 or 1×11 deals on eBay. The difference between 10 and 11 is about 20-30 dollars. I went for the 1 x11 with the RD-5120 and an 11-46 cassette. They can fit up to an 11-50 even though Shimano doesn’t support it, but it works. Also, I may be able to just get a chainring to your current crankset. I went for a cheap IXF crankset that comes with the chainring and bottom bracket for about $50 via Amazon.
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I recently did a 1×10 conversion with shimano cues for around 200 its a little heavy but i love it compared to 3×8
I put a Microsoft Advent X on a hand me down bike for my son. Kept the cranks and mounted a 28T chain ring from Wolf Tooth. As he gets older/stronger, I’ll probably switch to 30T or 32T.
All on it was probably $200