1x XPLR Derailleur with a Front Derailleur? Can it be done?

[@BlackWaterCyclist]

Be sure to visit my website at www.blackwaterbicycles.com Subscribe: tinyurl.com/yyd6vb6k Follow me on: Instagram: instagram.com/blackwater.bicycles Facebook: facebook.com/Blackwaterbicycles1 Strava: www.strava.com/athletes/179615

[@krollpeter]

I always wanted to know this, and you provide the perfect explanation with accompanying demo! Thank you!

[@veganpotterthevegan]

Its innacurate though.

[@edymarkonthego4096]

You are absolutely right. Now I understand that RD needs to be replaced.

[@veganpotterthevegan]

You really just need a different cage

[@Peregrino.51]

Welcome back!

[@BlackWaterCyclist]

Thanks @Kactusdog !! This past year was a rough one. My wife and I decided to to go for baby #4 and shoot for the boy. We got HIM! But he also kicked our butts! Coming out of the fog of a year of no sleep. Then started a bike brand during that same time so finally getting some time to focus on the channel. Hope to have videos out much more regularly now.

[@Peregrino.51]

@@BlackWaterCyclist Awesome stuff. Love to hear it. We are expecting our 2nd girl this Nov. I'll all in on the dropbar HT gravel bike experiment these days, it's been very educational. We'll have to chat some time!

[@mattkavanaugh5623]

I have used a rear derailleur hanger extension (Wolftooth) to accommodate larger cassettes on several of my bikes with 2X front chainrings

[@BlackWaterCyclist]

Yes I have actually done the same but the shifting performance in the smaller cogs is less than ideal because the upper pulley is further away from them resulting is slow clucky shifts.

[@Ar0wally]

hey wut about using a sram apex axs rear deraileur with a bike with front deraileur/2x setup?

[@BlackWaterCyclist]

Sram will not allow the XPLR AXS rear derailleur to pair with an AXS front derailleur.

[@robertmcfadyen9156]

Making a cage redesign is the answer .

[@veganpotterthevegan]

Yup, and plenty are available

[@BlackWaterCyclist]

@veganpotterthevegan is absolutely correct. Ratio Tech, Hope, Garbaruk, and OneUp are a few I can think of that have extender cages.

[@CyclingCauvin]

Would that mean if a road RD with a garbaruk extender would work better than using the XPLR?

[@BlackWaterCyclist]

The garbaruk extender cage does the same thing as the XPLR derailleur so essentially no change as far as trying to run it in a 2x system. You can get the garbaruk cage to run a 2x axs derailleur 1x like the XPLR.

[@bartonbronstein8121]

I have a 105 rear derailleur. can I use that with a 1x ? Thank you!

[@robertmcfadyen9156]

The top pulley distance from each cog at the rear is not perfectly uniform though . The mid range shifting is slightly sub - par .

[@veganpotterthevegan]

It never will be unless a derailleur is made to only work with one hanger geometry and a specific cassette range. This was a thing 15yrs ago using an 11-21 cassette and an 11-28 with the same rear derailleur.

[@Metal-Possum]

Shimano doesn't really have this issue, they stuck with the slant parallelogram geometry that Suntour implemented 60 years ago... Is it better? Not entirely, especially on rough terrain, but it is much more versatile.

[@BlackWaterCyclist]

Yes that is a good point I should have made during the video. I have found even with the parallelogram, they still struggle to clear the larger cogs without an offset pulley when you install a large range cassette.

[@veganpotterthevegan]

That upper pulley location has little to do with it being 1x or 2x. If it did, aftermarket oversized pulley wheels and cages wouldn't shift that upper pulley axis. It simply allows better chain wrap on the cassette on the smaller cogs but thats not necessary with stock pulley sizes. It also lets SRAM not design entirely new derailleurs for huge cassette ranges.

[@BlackWaterCyclist]

To adjust for the oversized pulley wheels, you just increase the B screw gap. You can get a fixed upper pulley to clear larger cogs but like I mentioned in the video, the shifting in the smaller cogs will suffer and if you adjust it to shift good in the small cogs then the upper pulley will hit the larger cogs. Just like you said it helps the chain wrap (and shifting) in the smaller cogs. Now a parallelogram derailleur can be designed to clear larger cogs with a fixed upper pulley but it will still suffer bad shifting somewhere on the cassette.

[@veganpotterthevegan]

@BlackWaterCyclist for sure, but then you get bad chain wrap on the smaller cogs. Without offsetting it, some pulleys won't even clear big cogs on a cassette so that's another necessary reason to move the pulleys axis.

[@veganpotterthevegan]

@@BlackWaterCyclist the very big pulleys some people use on their bikes would never clear a 36t cog without the aftermarket cage.

[@micno2076]

Still waiting for that Apex, Rival or Force XPLR derailleur...

[@BlackWaterCyclist]

When did you order it?

[@michaelnewman4302]

" "1x XPLR Derailleur with a Front Derailleur? Can it be done?" I kept watching, thinking you were going to discuss XPLR. You didn't. GX isn't XPLR.

[@Stevehatesgravel]

It should be done 1x is cr@p🤣🤣

[@robertmcfadyen9156]

Shimano shifts superior overall .