Now that I have swapped my chainring from 40 to 38T, https://community.escapecollective.com/t/sram-xplr-chainring-replacement/5519
I find myself wanting a smaller chainring still, at least a 36T for when I’m touring with panniers and big hills.
As far as I can see, SRAM don’t seem to make an 8 bolt direct mount, road/gravel 1x chainring smaller than the 38T I now have??
I’m hoping someone can point me at the smaller ones I’ve missed, or else give me some logical reason why this is the case. They make smaller spider-mounted chainrings, but not direct mount???
WTF??
Check out the Wolftooth offerings.
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Yep - they are on my options list. I’ve used their (spider-mount) rings on my previous bike.
I’m just dumbstruck that SRAM make 36T spider-mount rings, but don’t make direct mount smaller than 38T, especially since direct mount virtually eliminates any physical restriction on ring size.
It just seems bizarre - to the point that I wonder if I’m missing something! 
Alugear make 8 bolt rings with various offsets from 26T up. SRAM and Shimano don’t seem to think anyone should be able to have low gears on anything except MTBs…
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I’m actually torn between replacing the direct mount ring with a spider so I can then have a 36T and a 40T and easily swap them without needing a 54Nm (and more when undoing it) torque wrench!
I’m just annoyed that that will cost ~$450 for the 3 components v’s ~$110 for one more direct mount ring.
Humph.
Maybe I’ll wait and get a Garbaruk 10-52T cassette instead.
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I have the 11-50 11 speed on my 650b gravel bike wheel-set. Its been good but my gut feel is that it looks a bit softer than other offerings. It is very light tho!