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ESSA, CUES, Advent, Advent X, Acolyte, Sword, and other sub-12-speed low-end groups are all range-impaired compared to what you can get by spending more. Extend it out to 12-speed and there's Eagle SX, which is budget and ticks the box but also barely functions.

Does this tendency in market offerings correlate only to technical limitations in what can be achieved at these groups' target price points, or is there a degree of artificial throttling happening here in what range can be had for what price?

As we saw rear speeds climb in number, it was easy to accept that better tolerances and more premium construction elements all around the rear derailleur were needed to make the systems go, since it's easy to understand how those tolerances relate to the RD's ability to be where it's supposed to be at any given time. But if you're designing Shimano ESSA, something that's supposed to be the best expression you can get to of a budget mainstream 1x8 group, how are you likewise constrained or not constrained? Where is the 11-45 coming from? What large cog size it clears is a factor of geometry alone, and the cog-to-cog spacing is the same as any other Shimano 8 cassette, so all the tolerance/quality elements that lead up to locating the guide pulley should be largely the same.

If the answer revolves around shifting quality or reliability with bigger jumps, what exact elements are in play that need more cost to get there? Does part of the answer revolve around the jumps being inherently smaller the more speeds you have, causing the problem to feed itself?

Or, is there a serious notion among manufacturers that the mainstream appetite isn't there or relevant for bigger range numbers on low-end 1x groups? That would seem to be not true on the surface, but it's also true that not everyone has the same needs or the same hills.

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  • "Eagle SX, which ... barely functions." Not to derail the question, but I'm curious what you mean here.
    – Michael come lately
    Commented Jul 18 at 17:44

3 Answers 3

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A totally fair question. It seems to me like there's a 3-way optimization problem between the desired top gear, the desired bottom gear, and the acceptable gearing jump between the cogs at various parts of the range. To a lesser extent, another limit is the maximum possible difference between cogs may limit the top cog and total range - the maximum actual difference that anyone has right now is 10t (SRAM). Shimano and Campy choose smaller jumps at the low end (big cogs), whereas SRAM has closer spacing at the high end (small cogs) and big jumps at the low end.

I am not an engineer, but I assume that designing 3-5t jumps even at the higher end of the cassette is totally feasible. The question is, would the jump in gearing be acceptable to users.

The cog sequence for the SRAM GX 12s cassette is: 10-12-14-16-18-21-24-28-32-36-42-52

The cog sequence for Microshift's Advent X 10s cassette is: 11-13-15-18-21-24-28-34-40-48

An 11s or 10s 1x cassette may have to sacrifice a 10t cog to keep the jumps at the higher end to 2-3t. Here's a made-up 10s, 12-52 cassette:

12-14-16-18-21-24-28-34-42-52

Presumably someone smarter could optimize the combination better. Nevertheless, as I mentioned, you have to trade off something. Your top gear here is low. The jumps at the top end are pretty big. I understand that SRAM derailleurs handle their 10t jumps well, though. I would assume you could engineer more budget derailleurs that can take a 10t jump, just with cheaper materials.

To date, it doesn't seem like anyone's tried the tradeoff of a 12t or 13t starting cog. Perhaps someone should! I don't know how well that tradeoff would be received in either MTBs or gravel bikes. It may be less acceptable on gravel. However, we should honestly ask ourselves how often we're in our maximum gear, and if we're in our maximum gear, could we afford to coast or to pedal faster.

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    e*13 has a 12-speed 13-52 cassette, targeted for e-bikes. But not many bikes have a frame that can take large chainrings to compensate for that 13T sprocket, especially if the reference is 10T - important to factor that cadences are usually much lower on e-bikes.
    – Rеnаud
    Commented Jul 15 at 20:05
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My impression is that beginners/non-sportive cyclists prefer much lower cadence than the ones with a performance oriented mind (and even more for e-bikes riders), which change the perspective. Also narrow steps are critical to reach an optimal power delivery, which is often not the priority for the riders of such groupsets.

Taking the 9-speed CUES as reference (11-13-15-17-20-23-28-36-46 - there are also other references with smaller large sprockets, but the difference is only on the 3 last ones), if you consider a 40T chainring and a 60rpm cadence (which is hard to imagine for some of the regulars here ;)), the 11-23 part of the cassette will cover more or less the 15 to 30km/h range with 6 sprockets (so 2 to 3 km/h steps), which is where most of the time will be spent. The larger cogs are mostly there as backup, for the occasional steep hills, so steps can be bigger, but they are not huge as well (7, 9 and 11 km/h).

So to me, it does not sound like too much of a compromise, or an artificial limitation meant to purely segment the market.

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It would surprise me if product-line engineering accounted explained this in the case of Microshift. They seem to take pride in having budget products, and they don't have any derailleurs that can handle a 50t big sprocket. They wouldn't be cannibalizing any higher-end product. They do get pretty close: they can handle a 436% range with 2x Sword.

Megarange cassettes with gigantic steps between sprockets (as much as 10t) have been around for decades. I've never ridden one of these, but I have to imagine that last shift is pretty ugly.

I know less about bike mechanics than the other participants in this discussion, but my guess is that you can engineer a derailleur to give good shifting across a comparatively narrow range, or a comparatively wide range, but not both, and the market just isn't there for low price, super-wide range setups.

Covering a wider range would seem to require that the rear derailleur have

  • A steeper angle of travel to hug the cassette
  • A longer parallelogram (a natural consequence of a steeper angle)
  • More distance between the upper pivots and mounting bolt

I can see how all of these would tend to degrade shifting in general, and an unnecessary degradation when used with smaller cassettes. I can imagine a company like Microshift wouldn't want to engineer a "super range" derailleur to cater to that need, as it would be a comparatively niche product, making it more expensive and not fitting their overall brand image.

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    The last shift is generally fine. But the jump in gearing/cadence leaves a lot to be desired, IMO
    – Paul H
    Commented Jul 15 at 18:21

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