After our first month long bike tour in Germany/France, my wife and I have fallen in love with the concept and are planning our next Europe tour (we are in Australia).
The one big problem is my wife is not a strong rider and she hates hills - to the point that it really hampers route planning (there is only so many river paths I can take ).
She really wants an e-gravel bike (she took a Canyon Grizl E-bike for a test ride in Koblenz ) but we canāt fly with the battery so that rules that idea out.
So I want to try and update her groupset to get super low gears to crawl up the hills even when sheās loaded up with 20kg of bags.
Current her Canyon Grail Al6 has a grx400 RD (10 speed) with an 11-36 and a grx600 crankset running 46/30.
I was wondering what my options are to get ultra low gears?
Do I fit a mtb RD, cassette, and a 1x crankset (not sure if the pull ratio is the same for mtb and road shifters)?
Or ditch the full groupset and fit a SRAM mullet mechanical groupset?
High speeds are not needed, but the ability to spin 80rpm at 4kph would be really good and would open up our route options.
A limiting factor is going to be the rear mechās capacity:
(big ring - small ring) + (big sprocket - small sprocket)
You can cheat on this a little bit if you pinky-swear not to cross-chain. With your current setup, your derailleur needs a capacity of 41tāwhich is exactly what it has. Near as I can tell the max range on Shimano derailleurs is 43t, which doesnāt get you much farther.
Extra-large derailleur pulleys wrap up a little extra chain, although I donāt think itās enough to make a big difference. Sugino makes an eccentric pair of derailleur pulleys designed to increase your capacity, but holy cow theyāre expensive.
An alternative would be to put something like 42/26 in front. It looks like if you switch to Specialites T.A. 6-bolt cranks, you can set that up. Peter White Cycles has them.
The old-fashioned solution would be to install a triple, but Iām not sure how viable that would be with this bike.
I think the solution is to mail the battery! Stick with the e-gravel bike, but ship it to your first hotel (a reputable one youāve notified) so that way itās waiting for you. You can then ship the battery back home at the end of the tour. Not cheap, but probably comparable to buying all of this other gear.
By shipping, it would have to be on an actual ship - that takes ages and has all manor of potential for holdups. You canāt send it by air. Itās actually a huge prob with e-bikes with no solution in sight.
By my calculations 80rpm at 4km/h would require a gear of around 10.45 inches. This is not mechanically achievable, and if it was balancing at that speed would be near-impossible. (I tried a 12ā gear on a MTB once and it didnāt help.)
About the lowest you might easily go is 28x42,which gives a gear of 18ā, assuming 27ā wheels. With a cadence of 60rpm this would yield a speed of just over 5km/h. TA make 44x28 rings to fit GRX cranks, and those are the smallest I know about. Itās entirely possible that a 42T cassette might work with the existing GRX RD; these usually work with 11 speed GRX - no hanger extender required.
1x isnāt going to help much either as the smallest ring you can get (that I know of) is 26T, for which youād need different cranks. Even with the largest available (52T) rear cog thatād āonlyā give a gear of 13.5ā - still super low, but nowhere near 10.45ā - and top gear would be extremely limiting. And then thereās the gaps, which would be considerably worse with 10 speeds than 12, and arenāt IMO great with the latter.
If the problem is leg strength, a bit of weight work helps, much as I hate going to gyms.
And if youāre really carrying 20kg of stuff each I strongly suggest looking at lightweight camping gear, or staying indoors(!). Yes, some people carry more but much less can get the job done IME, especially during summer.
(FWIW, Iām planning on using 43x25 Dixna La rings with an 11-39 ZTTO 12 speed cassette on the next gravel/touring bike, and Iām a spinner; most people would argue that this is stupidly low alreadyā¦)
Iāve successfully run a 11-40 cassette with a 46/30 crankset on a 11 speed GRX setup with no modifications besides cranking the B-tension screw almost all the way in. I run a chain long enough to safely handle a big/big shift without tearing anything off. No issues for me with the chain being too long.
Renting e-bikes in Europe is super easy and the best way for both of you to enjoy the holiday. You could no go to a region with more e-gravel bikes or trekking ebikes, they are every where. She will have a great time and you will get the challenge of keeping up with her vs the other way round. Throw the charger in a pannier and off you go.
GRX will work with 46/30 and 11-40 cassette, maybe 11-42 if you use a Wolf Tooth Roadlink DM.
That may make it possible to climb the hill, but big difference between possible and enjoyable. You will both find it more enjoyable if you can ride at a similar level, so would strongly suggest looking at hiring a bike for your wife instead of using her bike.
Cycling with my wife has been completely transformed after getting her a really good (powerful, mid drive) e-bike. She previously hated hilly rides, but now she loves them, and carrying stuff was a no-go, whereas now itās no problem.
1x drivetrain would simplify this in various ways. What one typically gives up is big gears, but it sounds like thatās not a concern in this case (and itās reduced if you can fit a 10 tooth cog). And the steps between gears are a bit bigger, also not necessarily a concern in this use case, and one can mitigate it by switching from 10 speed to 11 or 12 speed.
1x drivetrain would simplify this in various ways. What one typically gives up is big gears, but it sounds like thatās not a concern in this case (and itās reduced if you can fit a 10 tooth cog). And the steps between gears are a bit bigger, also not necessarily a concern in this use case, and one can mitigate it by switching from 10 speed to 11 or 12 speed.
While I agree with the sentiment (I run 1x on my bikepacking/gravel bike), there are problems in this case I feel.
Switching to 1x with 10 or 11 speed loses a lot in terms of range, as a 10 tooth cog isnāt an option without also switching out the driver on the hub so that a Sram cassette can be used. It is possible to find 11-50t cassette to give most of the range, but they are third party brands (e.g. ZTTO) so shifting may be less than ideal, and there is a good chance the mech would need to be switched out for a 12 speed GRX mech (this will still work with 10 and 11 speed GRX).
If switching the whole drivetrain out for 12 speed is an option, then 1x is absolutely a great shout, but that will also require a new driver, or more likely a whole new rear hub/wheel, plus the drivetrain, and so the question then becomes, at what point is it just sensible to get a new bike.
My wife and I just completed a self-guided/self-supported tour across northern Spain, and while I was on my gravel bike (40-10/52), she was on her road bike (33/46-10/36). That gave me around 20.4 gear inches and she had about 24. While most of the climbs were pretty small (100-400 vertical feet) and grades in the 3-7% range, the extra weight on the bike (14lbs) definitely made a difference. She rarely used her big ring and said for the next trip she will use her gravel bike for easier climbing. I agree fully with the comments above that the tallest gears really donāt matter on a trip like this as much as the spinny ones.
I see that Microshift Sword includes 10 speed 11-48 cassette. Assuming one is willing to give up on the biggest gears, something like that, with a 34 tooth chainring or such (anyway, smaller than Swordās 40), provides very easy gears for not a lot of money. One can do the same with 10 or 11 speed Shimano without swapping the HG freehub body. No 10 tooth cog that way, but I donāt think a 10 tooth cog is essential here.
I have run a GRX 1x Di2 with a Shimano 11-51T cassette and no issues. Iād still be running it except the cassette started to have some play between cogs. I swapped it out for a Shimano 11-46T that I had in stock, but plan on going back to the 11-51T at some point.
Iām currently 6 weeks into an 8 week tour in France with my wife. We did 6 weeks on our first tour here in 2018 without major issues. This trip, my wife has struggled and now wants me to set up her touring bike for electric assist for our next trip, hopefully in 2 years. Iāll ship it or the battery as needed months ahead of time and possibly try to find a place I can leave both our bikes as we really donāt tour in the US any longer and dragging them and gear over here as we get older is exhausting. Her lowest gear-inch is 20.2 and frequently isnāt enough. Father time is unbeaten. We carry full camping gear as we canāt afford to stay indoors everyday, the bikes are heavy.
And the Sword 10 speed 11-48 is great - my wife has it on her gravel bike, with a 36t chainring, but itās an e-bike, as even with those low gears there is no way she would be willing to ride the mountains without that motor assist, and certainly not loaded, or at a pace I would be ok with.
For the OP to switch to the Sword 1x, it would need a new crankset if anything less that 38t ring is required (it probably will for loaded climbing), and maybe a new rear mech, so the costs are creeping up. And the question then still has to be whether thatās worth it vs hiring an e-bike, which would level the climbing abilities of the OP and their wife, likely making for a more enjoyable experience for both.
- to the point that it really hampers route planning (there is only so many river paths I can take 
).
) but we canāt fly with the battery so that rules that idea out. 
