After some great input in Gravel/all road wheel advice wanted , I’m continuing the quest of speccing out my Fairlight Strael 4.0 where the group set choice is up next.
I want to keep it mechanical with hydraulic disc breaks, 2x and Shimano.
My current favorite is the 2x11 speed GRX so 600/610. I’ve found an unused GRX 600 secondhand for 480 Euro which I think is a fair price. It includes everything except the brake disks. It has 46/30 up front and an 11-34 cassette. My lowest gear on my current road bike is a 38 up front with 36 in the rear and I’d like some lighter gears so the 30-36 lightest gear is looking really nice to me.
Are there any reasons I shouldn’t go for the GRX600? Are there any other group sets I should be looking at? I’ve seen the new Tiagra R4000 and it looks promising but the 30 tooth chain ring up front has me leaning towards the GRX. I’ve also heard that mechanical shifting starts to get real finicky once you go to 12 speed so that’s why I’m leaning to 11. Is that a thing or just anecdotal evidence?
I am currently shopping, build kits for a new gravel bike as well, and while I am leaning to a Shimano GRX solution, possibly with a Praxis crank, the new Campy group is tugging at my heartstrings.
IMOP, there’s zero reason to not go GRX600. The product is well designed and reliable. The one thing I’d ad to your list is a high quality hanger adjustment tool since, in my view, anything about 10s can be finicky. Having the right tool to keep the hanger square is essential.
It’s very unlikely the Fairlight Strael hanger will need adjusting. The build quality on Fairlight frames is fantastic, and they check each bike/frame in London before final dispatch. The hangers are also beefy machined parts into which both the handle and wheel spindle thread, effectively aligning the hanger with the wheel, rather than the frame.
GRX 600 is great. You loose servo wave by not going for 810, which does impact pad clearance/free stroke, so worth considering the higher level levers, but without trying well bled levers side by side, doubt you’d have a clue what difference that makes.
If you find you can actually get away with slightly higher gear ranges just pair the groupset with a road crankset instead of the GRX one, but 36/30 is great for most steep roads.
You could even throw on an 11-40 cassette for an even wider range with lower first gear. 11-40 isn’t officially supported by the groupset, but a mate has been running that setup with his 2x11 GRX group for years.
I have 2x12 105, and 1x12 GRX, and I am currently having issues with the latter on my Secan. I’m not sure at this point if it’s the tight cable loop at the mech, or I think more likely it’s the mech pivots that have become sticky (the mech is almost three years old, and gets year round use here in Scotland). I also have 1x12 on my MTBs, and have no issues with either. In conclusion, with a new setup and matching parts you shouldn’t have any issues with 2x12 if you decide to go that route, particularly given the Strael’s traditional cable routing.
I’ve been running 2x12 mechanical GRX on my gravel bike for a couple of years now and it’s been fine - not noticeably more finicky than 2x11. I’m not saying you should definitely get x12, just I don’t think you should discount it.
The other thing I would note is that depending on your typical riding, you might find a top gear of 46x11 a bit limiting. It does depend on how much gravel you plan to ride, but given you’ve opted for the Strael rather than the Secan, I might lean towards options with slightly taller gearing.
Run 11 speed ultegra (and formerly 105) 50/34 up front with a long cage 105 derailleur, and an xt deore 11:42 out back via a wolf tooth road link. Heaps of range, no issues. V happy with it.
Funny, that’s very similar to my current setup on my CAAD12 in 10 speed. I have a cannondale crank up front, specialites TA chainrings, Ultegra 10 speed shifters an 11-36 xt 10 speed casette and an old Shimano 9 speed m771 rear derailleur. The derailleur is from before Shimano changed the cable pull ratios for mtb and so the Ultegra is working happily with the XT derailleur.
Very good to know that these kind of tricks are still an option, thanks
Out of curiosity, I’d guess that your setup with 50/34 and 11-42 exceeds some kind of total capacity limit of the rear derailleur. Does the chain get a bit louder when you’re in the lowest gears or do you have some slack in the highest ones?
Good to know that the 12 speed mechanical GRX is working nicely for you and that I don’t have to discount it per se. Maybe I can find a good offer for a 12 speed GRX groupset.
Fair point, that thought has crossed my mind, I’ve done some back of the envelope math and it looks like it’s right on the limit but I might be fine.
Running the numbers, I get:
Maximum gear ratio 46:11=4.18
Assuming a tire diameter of 700c, one wheel rotation gives me 700*pi = 2200cm
Considering that I typically ride a relatively cadence, 90 rpm sustained is fine, that should get me:
1.5 (crank rotations per second) * 4.18 (gear ratio) * 2200 (cm per crank rotation) = 13.8 m/s = 49.7 km/h
For a road race that would involve downhills that might indeed be somewhat limiting, for normal road riding I think I should be fine though.
looks super nice though, I have to admit
