While there are a few good points in this, manual changing of the chainrings in the front is something that would not fly for the masses. The other no-no is the big jumps between gears. 10T cassettes have the jumps just a bit larger than the 11T smallest cog cassettes (because 11-13 is less than 20 % of a jump, while 10-12 is in fact a 20 % jump), Sram's 52T cassette is stupid in this regard (a 24 % jump...) and if anything, smaller jumps would be beneficial. Old cassettes (9spd and 10spd) weren't any different in this regard on MTBs as we've more or less just added cogs on the larger side and kept the smaller cogs mostly the same (except the 10T part and all, but the differences there are small).
There is a way to have your cake and eat it too, mostly. Unsprung weight would be a small negative (but yeah, when you have 1+ kg tyres, a few 100 grams of inserts and the like, does it matter THAT much) and you'd more or less need electronic shifting, but, you would have only 6 or 7 cogs, better chainline, all the range we have now or more, smooth steps between gears and no weird machinations with the chain and sprockets.
How to get there? Pair a Classified internal hub with a wide range, large step cassette, but use the internal hub for the inbetween gears. So you shift the hub every time you shift, not like we used the front derailleur.
The cassette with 6 cogs would be a 10-14-19-26-35-49 with a 0,85 reduction ratio in the planetary hub, giving the inbetweener gears of effectively 11,8-16,52-22,42-20,68-41,3-57,82. That would give a whopping 578 % of range, which could be tightened down to a smaller range and give even smaller steps between gear. With the numbers above the steps are between 15 and 20 % in all but one gear change, as shown here (compared to Shimano and Sram 12-speed drivetrains): [https://i.imgur.com/9w9JyaT.png](https://i.imgur.com/9w9JyaT.png)
Going to 7 cogs could of course improve things even further. But yeah, electronic would be the way to go, at least as an adapter box with an actuator driving the cable for a standard derailleur (ala Archer components setup).
March 17, 2021, 9:14 a.m. - Primož Resman
While there are a few good points in this, manual changing of the chainrings in the front is something that would not fly for the masses. The other no-no is the big jumps between gears. 10T cassettes have the jumps just a bit larger than the 11T smallest cog cassettes (because 11-13 is less than 20 % of a jump, while 10-12 is in fact a 20 % jump), Sram's 52T cassette is stupid in this regard (a 24 % jump...) and if anything, smaller jumps would be beneficial. Old cassettes (9spd and 10spd) weren't any different in this regard on MTBs as we've more or less just added cogs on the larger side and kept the smaller cogs mostly the same (except the 10T part and all, but the differences there are small). There is a way to have your cake and eat it too, mostly. Unsprung weight would be a small negative (but yeah, when you have 1+ kg tyres, a few 100 grams of inserts and the like, does it matter THAT much) and you'd more or less need electronic shifting, but, you would have only 6 or 7 cogs, better chainline, all the range we have now or more, smooth steps between gears and no weird machinations with the chain and sprockets. How to get there? Pair a Classified internal hub with a wide range, large step cassette, but use the internal hub for the inbetween gears. So you shift the hub every time you shift, not like we used the front derailleur. The cassette with 6 cogs would be a 10-14-19-26-35-49 with a 0,85 reduction ratio in the planetary hub, giving the inbetweener gears of effectively 11,8-16,52-22,42-20,68-41,3-57,82. That would give a whopping 578 % of range, which could be tightened down to a smaller range and give even smaller steps between gear. With the numbers above the steps are between 15 and 20 % in all but one gear change, as shown here (compared to Shimano and Sram 12-speed drivetrains): [https://i.imgur.com/9w9JyaT.png](https://i.imgur.com/9w9JyaT.png) Going to 7 cogs could of course improve things even further. But yeah, electronic would be the way to go, at least as an adapter box with an actuator driving the cable for a standard derailleur (ala Archer components setup).