I’ve got a 15 month old who I’m interested in getting on a bike with me at some point (he loves coming in the running pram and is starting to use his balance bike)
I’ve been looking at a shotgun seat for the bike but you need 10mm of spacers and I’ve only got 5 on my current MTB which is an Epic Evo.
But my father in law has an old 26” Merida hard tail that he doesn’t use that he’s willing to donate.
My question is. How have people found CUES if they’ve used it? It’s also partly just for a fun project. The bike is entirely externally routed so should be straightforward to swap. Plus it keeps my nice bike parts with less wear.
Should be able to run the 11-48 cassette with the exisiting cranks just swap a 32 single ring on it
I have converted two 3x bikes to 1x CUES. As you note, it is fairly straightforward. It does make the bike simpler and lighter which is great for utility cycling like this.
On a tangent, I found a trailer better for transporting kids than a seat - though I never tried the shotgun. A trailer lets you bring more (e.g. their balance bike).
I can’t comment on cues but I switched my partner’s bike from 3x8 to 10 speed 1x micro shift (cues was back ordered). She seems happy with the result and setup was simple if you have a bit of bike wrenching experience. Not a crazy idea at all and fairly affordable.
CUES is fine. Used a 1x11 CUES/linkglide XT drivetrain for a year or so of commuting. Shifting is slightly slow but shifting under load doesnt seem to bother it. The mechs seem reasonably well-sealed from the weather, and the cassettes are heavy but seem durable - little discernible wear after a year, with one chain swap. I used waxed chain, which probably also helped.
You might want to check out Russ over at The Path Less Pedaled. A few YouTubes there about CUES and how it lines up. Microshift’s stuff is very good and cheaper.
With that 10mm spacer from the shotgun seat, would the stembolts still be on the steerer? If so, I’d run it regardless - it’s not a carbon fork so failure is unlikely. Getting a shotgun seat for our kids was the best decision ever. We are having so much fun on the bike. Although at 15 months I’d be looking at the thule front seat, not the shotgun. Have fun!
I’ve replaced two commuters with 1x - one directly when I bought it, the biggest challenge being the overly tightened cranks and square taper bottom bracket.
I’ve also used the opportunity to swap out the Tektro brakes since the levers had some play in the pivot and I had some road calipers lying around that work well with the cheaper Shimano levers - seems like these are quite interchangeable as long as the hose uses the right pin.
The first one runs the derailleur and cranks from my first road bike, a 9 speed Sora + the Wolf Tooth Hanger extender to run a 11-36 cassette, the other 1x10 Cues. I find the shifting much better on the Sora and it’s lighter, but I wish I had a smaller chainring or 11-42 in the back since I also use that with a child seat.
Overall I can fully recommend going down this path, I don’t need perfect cadence and 9/10 speeds on a wide cassette is enough for a hybrid. It’s a much cleaner simpler setup - not having the messy FD and extra chainrings makes it more likely I’ll ever clean these bikes (not that I’d need to). The only thing that didn’t work out was waxing the chain on one of the bikes and having that bike under a cover outside. I don’t ride in the rain, so I thought it would be ok, but it turned out to rust quite quickly.
If I had an old bike I would have done the same - I’m also planning to change my parents bikes to 1x, likely cues to get parts more easily - I don’t think they ever intentionally use the FD and again, I’d like to help them have a cleaner and simpler bike. Since the bikes are a bit older, I’ll also need to get a new rear wheel, so this is definitely in the fun project category.
Also I’m a bit surprised to see so many 2x cues on new hybrid bikes, this doesn’t make any sense to me.
Great plan!
Shotgun seat owner here. It’s a great product, but if I had my time again, I’d stretch for the shotgun pro. My seat scratches up the paint a bit, and is a bit more of a faff to set up when moving between bikes than I’d like!