>>1555111>I am not saying it wont. But outside of a crit, time trial, or hill climb bike 1x isn't viable for the road because you do not have sufficient gear range and the jumps between gears is too large for managing your cadence.Since the inception of the sport, up until 2005-ish a road bike was equipped with about 250-300% of gearing range. Often with less. people were doing the same climbs. Up until 1985ish road bikes would get all cogs spced by 2-teeth and people were doing fine.
Of course - having 24 speeds and 400% is better then having 12 and 250%, but the difference is not as high as you may thing. You are way too extreme in thinking what is "necessary".
Literally - at this very moment you can gobble up chinesium like the cassette in pic-related ( which I own, it works fine ), couple that to a 44-46T chainring, some 12 speed Sensah brifter and 95% of people riding road bikes would not note a difference of this to their typical setup. With the drivetrain above you would already be better off then cyclists from the XXth century.
The issue is that people who utilize compacts with 32-34T cassettes have no business of running 50T rings. But they insist of having them for the purpose of image.
