The wife bought a MY25 Cannondale Quick CX 2 to replace her recently stolen 2022 Specialized Sirius X 4.0. Prior to being stolen, I had just upgraded the groupset on the Specialized from NX (11-42T) to NX Eagle (11-50T) because she complained she needed an easier gear or two on steeper climbs. This bike - just like her stolen bike - is primarily her commuter bike that she sometimes takes off-road when we’re doing gravel rides.
https://www.cannondale.com/en-us/bikes/active/fitness/quick-cx/quick-cx-2?sku=C31025U10SM
The Cannondale Quick CX 2 comes with Shimano CUE 10-speed groupset, 40T chainring with a 11-48T cassette. Changing the 40T chainring to a 38T will have an even more climb-friendly gear ratio (0.79 versus 0.8 on the stolen bike).
Looking at the Shimano website for the current crankset on her bike, the chainring choices are limited to 40T,42T, and 30T,32T. I measured the current chainline - from the center of the bike to the chainring - to be roughly 52mm.
https://bike.shimano.com/en-SG/products/components/pdp.P-FC-U4000-1.html
With the current chainline of about 52mm, do you think it’s possible to put a 38T chainring (or even a 36T if we need to go that small)?
I am not familiar with the Shimano CUE groupset but it does not look like the FC-U4000-1 crankset can be separated from the chainring as the latter appears to be riveted to the spider. Her bike also has this Shimano “square type BB” BB-UN101 that I am not familiar. I suspect changing to a 38T chainring will likely require replacing the BB and crankset.