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WHAT JONAS KNOWS ABOUT 1X DRIVETRAINS THAT OTHERS DON'T | RDMN PODCAST CLIPS

with Rdmn Podcast Clips

6:52·21 August 2023

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KEY TAKEAWAYS

1x drivetrains are quietly winning at World Tour level. Some pros now run 60-tooth single chainrings on road stages, with custom 64–66 tooth rings for time trials paired with bespoke cassettes designed to keep the chain in its straightest line.
Cross-chaining is the hidden tax. The 1x setup looks extreme but actually reduces drivetrain friction in TT scenarios by keeping the chain aligned through the gears riders actually use.
Shimano Dura-Ace is the fastest stock road chain — roughly three-quarters of a watt quicker than its closest competitors in independent testing.
The "wider tyre is always faster" claim has limits. On Continental's modern moulds the 28mm GP5000 is under one watt quicker than the 25mm — meaningful, but smaller than internet consensus suggests.
Equipment optimisation at the top is increasingly rider- specific. Custom chainring teeth, custom cassettes, custom cockpits — the era of one-size-fits-all groupset choice is closing.

TOPICS

CYCLING FOR TRIATHLETES

Jonas breaks down what makes a 1x drivetrain truly fast, from the specific chainring and cassette ratios that competitive cyclists are actually running, to why a Shimano Dura-Ace chain will save you precious watts. You'll learn the real performance differences between components and tires that matter, and which ones are just marketing noise.

Key Takeaways

For road racing competitiveness on a 1x setup, aim for a 48/35 chainring with a 10-tooth back cog—this gives you climbing ability, sprint range, and enough gearing without sacrificing speed
Shimano Dura-Ace chains are 0.75–1 watt faster than competitors' top chains on average; it's one of the cheapest efficiency gains available
Tire width gains are smaller than most people think: with properly engineered tire designs (like Continental), moving from 28mm to 30mm nets less than a watt, not the dramatic improvements claimed by older data
For optimal road and time trial performance, your tire should be narrower than your rim width—aim for the rim to be 105% of your tire's actual measured width
On rough gravel surfaces, wider tires (like 44–47mm) beat narrow ones by 10+ watts despite losing 2 watts aerodynamically, making the real-world advantage significant

Expert Quotes

"The Dura-Ace chain continues to be more or less the fastest chain you can buy—it's just a fast chain"

"Every five millimeters of wider gravel tire is like two watts of arrow loss in the wind tunnel, but on rough road you find that can be a 10 watt advantage"

"The number printed on the side of the tire is meaningless—you really want to get a set of calipers on it"

CLAIMS FROM THIS EPISODE

Each tagged with the strength of evidence behind it.

PRO PRACTICE
Some World Tour riders run 60-tooth chainrings on road races with 1x drivetrains, and 64–66 tooth chainrings on time trials paired with custom cassettes to minimise cross-chaining.
Source: Josh Poertner, former Zipp technical director and Silca CEO, on the Roadman Cycling Podcast
STUDY
The Shimano Dura-Ace chain tests as approximately three-quarters of a watt faster than competitor chains in drivetrain efficiency testing.
Source: Josh Poertner, citing efficiency testing data on the Roadman Cycling Podcast
STUDY
Continental's GP5000 in 28mm tests under 1 watt faster than the same tyre in 25mm on modern wheel moulds — a real but smaller advantage than commonly assumed.
Source: Josh Poertner, referenced on the Roadman Cycling Podcast
EXPERT
A 1x drivetrain reduces drivetrain friction in time-trial use cases by keeping the chain in a near-straight line, offsetting the loss of gear range with reduced cross- chaining losses.
Source: Josh Poertner, on the Roadman Cycling Podcast

KEY QUOTES

“the durase chain is is on average probably three quarters to a watt faster than the top chain of the other brands it's just a it's a fast chain”
Jonas — Cycling performance specialist/consultant working with pro peloton teams

“for time trialing we're you know I've got a couple of athletes on like 64 and 66 tooth chain rings for time traveling and the other thing they're thinking about the cross training particularly in a time trial type situation if it's relatively flat you know we will custom build a cassette to get whatever that kind of Sweet Spot one or two cogs right in the middle so that you're having minimal chain angle”
Jonas — Cycling performance specialist/consultant working with pro peloton teams

“maybe it's a two watt disadvantage an arrow but it's a 10 watt Advantage uh on a rough road surface and so yeah I think a lot of what Dylan is doing and where he's going is kind of informed by a lot of the work that he's been doing with us”
Jonas — Cycling performance specialist/consultant working with pro peloton teams

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT2 SECTIONS

Fastest Chainrings and Chains for Road

So in terms of commercially available chain Rings who's making the fastest setup at the moment and what is that ratio look like on a road bike so you know I would have been coming from a traditional 53 39 on the road and now it's a 4835 with a 10 on the back those are the ratios that are going to allow me to be competitive in road races have enough gears to climb and Sprint than line outs what would you be riding right now on my Factory uh I mean personally and having worked with SRAM for for years I love everybody over there but I mean man those Folks at Shimano just continue to kill it in these efficiency departments so you know the durase chain continues to be more or less the fastest chain you can buy and a little bit back to your opening you know if you have a an inexpensive bike that you're trying to maximize efficiency on you know there's not a ton of difference between the 105 cassette and chainring but you can probably save two Watts by going to a durase chain and they're not that expensive but you know the durase chain is is on average probably three quarters to a watt faster than the top chain of the other brands it's just a it's a fast chain so you know I would look at at that and then gosh for gravel racing I'm not a huge off the top of my head gearing chart guy but I would go as big as you can get I mean I you know if you could get a 12 you know a cassette in the back that starts with a 12 and then work your chain rings to go with that I mean you look at what we're doing with a lot of the the pro Peloton I mean the teams that we work with half a dozen I mean if you look at them they're running 60 tooth chainrings in Road stages in some of these cases and you know I think a lot of the guys are running you know 50 50 642 I mean it it it's as big as we can get the companies to give us and then that just lets them run larger cogs in the back and and I mean hell for time trialing we're you know I've got a couple of athletes on like 64 and 66 tooth chain rings for time traveling you know and the other thing they're thinking about the cross training particularly in a time trial type situation if it's relatively flat you know we will custom build a cassette to get whatever that kind of Sweet Spot one or two cogs right in the middle so that you're having minimal chain angle coming off of that that huge ring in the back because it's it's Watts right it's all watts and so moving on to tires and wheels so I'm running the Black Ink 45 Wheels a standard on my Factor they did come uh stock with a 28 male Goodyear Tire on it I changed that over to a 28 mil gp5000 s tubeless tire it's not the best tire for those wheels or is there something you would say is faster than 28 mil oh that tire really is kind of right at that sweet spot of it's almost the fastest Tire going but is also pretty functional in the real world right there's there's a lot of stuff out there that may be a little bit faster but with a a big increase in in puncture risk so it's pretty hard hard to beat the the thing I would look at there um and Continental is one of the brands you know they they use different molds and different preforms for each tire size and so you know this whole idea of you know wider tires roll faster that's true but I think at a much smaller it's a much smaller marginal gain than most people think because a lot of the data that built that theory came from companies in the old days like you know with tubulars where you might have one treadmold and you're using that on three different widths of tire and so what happens is as the tire gets bigger the percentage of sidewall gets bigger and the tire becomes faster but if you were to as Continental does you know change the preform the the tire rubber kind of percentage-wise with Tire width then the gains become smaller so I think you know with Conti as an example you know the the 28 is I think it's less than a watt faster than the 25 and the 30 is kind of similar you know it's these aren't huge numbers um whereas if you have like a handmade open tubular style like the older uh that they're going away from the snap but like the older Victoria tires some of them you could actually see pretty pretty big jumps there because all of a sudden you you know you had a the tread from the 23 was also used on the 27 and you now just have a much smaller relative tread to the sidewall but yeah so on that wheel I think that probably is a good Tire I would caliper it you know my for road racing kind of my ruler 105 thing you want the rim to be 105 of the tire width the challenge we have anymore is that you know different Wheels have different inner widths some companies have different inner bead widths front to rear but then also there's no all of the new etrto standards we still have not solved the tire width kind of to label consistency problem right and so some companies are saying this you know this tire is 28 millimeters on a 17 millimeter bead width and some are saying well this is on a 19 or a 21 and so essentially that the number print it on the side of the tire is is meaningless and so you really want to get a set of calipers on it and just make sure that you know for optimal road racing particularly for time traveling you really need that tire to be narrower than the rim and that in most cases with with these fastest to the fast tires that's going to be a faster overall combination than having a slightly wider tire that's wider than the rim I had Dylan Johnson on the podcast shut down a couple of weeks ago and he just loves his super Voyage gravel tires like I'm rocking 44s on the gravel bike I think he's rolling like 47s on the gravel bike racquets are faster in almost every conditions yeah we we actually just had Dylan in the Wind Tunnel a couple months ago and you know one of the things we learned for for gravel is that you know it's back kind of some ways back to the rule of 105.

Wider Tires Win on Rough Gravel

Once the tire is bigger than the rim the the rim is really just serving is more almost like as a Spoke shortening device you know the Deep rims are a little faster because the spokes are shorter and you're maybe controlling the flow and some of the shedding a little bit better you almost can't can't see it and so you know we learned and I I think in our he did a video and I think we've got a blog post up about it but it was you know every five millimeters was like a water two of Arrow loss I mean it was really fairly small and so when you looked at it and she's from you know from a 35 millimeter to a 45 millimeter tires just a couple watts of aerodynamic drag but you know you go do Chung method testing in the real world and you find that that can be as the road gets rougher the advantage goes way towards the wider Tire um you know so maybe it's a two watt disadvantage an arrow but it's a 10 watt Advantage uh on a rough road surface and so yeah I think a lot of what Dylan is doing and where he's going is kind of informed by a lot of the work that he's been doing with us and and with uh Travis here and in our office but yeah I would say for for gravel and particularly rough gravel wider is definitely better if you enjoyed that episode please press here for the motor conversation that I know you're gonna love and don't forget to subscribe to the channel and share it with your Club mates foreign

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Why are pro cyclists switching to 1x drivetrains?+

World Tour riders are moving to 1x setups primarily for aerodynamic and mechanical efficiency gains. Josh Poertner explains that eliminating the front derailleur reduces drag and simplifies shifting, while custom chainring and cassette combinations allow pros to avoid cross-chaining entirely across their full gear range.

What chainring size do pro cyclists use for time trials?+

Top professionals are running custom 64 to 66 tooth chainrings for time trials, paired with bespoke cassettes designed to keep the chain as straight as possible. For road stages, some riders use chainrings as large as 60 teeth as part of a 1x configuration rather than a traditional 53/39 compact setup.

What is the fastest chain for road cycling?+

According to Josh Poertner, the Shimano Dura-Ace chain is approximately three-quarters of a watt faster than competing chains. That margin is meaningful at World Tour level, where marginal efficiency gains are prioritised across every component on the bike.

Are wider tyres actually faster for road cycling?+

Not always. Josh Poertner debunks the assumption that wider is automatically quicker, showing that the Continental GP5000 in 28mm is less than one watt faster than the 25mm version on modern rim profiles. The gains from going wider are far smaller than commonly claimed, and the optimal choice depends heavily on the specific rim and tyre combination being used.

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Key Takeaways

For road racing competitiveness on a 1x setup, aim for a 48/35 chainring with a 10-tooth back cog—this gives you climbing ability, sprint range, and enough gearing without sacrificing speed

Shimano Dura-Ace chains are 0.75–1 watt faster than competitors' top chains on average; it's one of the cheapest efficiency gains available

Tire width gains are smaller than most people think: with properly engineered tire designs (like Continental), moving from 28mm to 30mm nets less than a watt, not the dramatic improvements claimed by older data

For optimal road and time trial performance, your tire should be narrower than your rim width—aim for the rim to be 105% of your tire's actual measured width

On rough gravel surfaces, wider tires (like 44–47mm) beat narrow ones by 10+ watts despite losing 2 watts aerodynamically, making the real-world advantage significant

Expert Quotes

"The Dura-Ace chain continues to be more or less the fastest chain you can buy—it's just a fast chain"

"Every five millimeters of wider gravel tire is like two watts of arrow loss in the wind tunnel, but on rough road you find that can be a 10 watt advantage"

"The number printed on the side of the tire is meaningless—you really want to get a set of calipers on it"

KEY QUOTES

“the durase chain is is on average probably three quarters to a watt faster than the top chain of the other brands it's just a it's a fast chain”
Jonas — Cycling performance specialist/consultant working with pro peloton teams

“for time trialing we're you know I've got a couple of athletes on like 64 and 66 tooth chain rings for time traveling and the other thing they're thinking about the cross training particularly in a time trial type situation if it's relatively flat you know we will custom build a cassette to get whatever that kind of Sweet Spot one or two cogs right in the middle so that you're having minimal chain angle”
Jonas — Cycling performance specialist/consultant working with pro peloton teams

“maybe it's a two watt disadvantage an arrow but it's a 10 watt Advantage uh on a rough road surface and so yeah I think a lot of what Dylan is doing and where he's going is kind of informed by a lot of the work that he's been doing with us”
Jonas — Cycling performance specialist/consultant working with pro peloton teams

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Why are pro cyclists switching to 1x drivetrains?+

What chainring size do pro cyclists use for time trials?+

What is the fastest chain for road cycling?+

Are wider tyres actually faster for road cycling?+

WHAT JONAS KNOWS ABOUT 1X DRIVETRAINS THAT OTHERS DON'T | RDMN PODCAST CLIPS

Key Takeaways

Expert Quotes

CLAIMS FROM THIS EPISODE

KEY QUOTES

Fastest Chainrings and Chains for Road

Wider Tires Win on Rough Gravel

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

NEVER MISS AN EPISODE

READ THE GUIDE

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WHAT JONAS KNOWS ABOUT 1X DRIVETRAINS THAT OTHERS DON'T | RDMN PODCAST CLIPS

Key Takeaways

Expert Quotes

CLAIMS FROM THIS EPISODE

KEY QUOTES

Fastest Chainrings and Chains for Road

Wider Tires Win on Rough Gravel

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

NEVER MISS AN EPISODE

READ THE GUIDE

RELATED EPISODES

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WHAT JONAS KNOWS ABOUT 1X DRIVETRAINS THAT OTHERS DON'T | RDMN PODCAST CLIPS

Key Takeaways

Expert Quotes

CLAIMS FROM THIS EPISODE

KEY QUOTES

1.Fastest Chainrings and Chains for Road

2.Wider Tires Win on Rough Gravel

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

NEVER MISS AN EPISODE

READ THE GUIDE

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WHAT JONAS KNOWS ABOUT 1X DRIVETRAINS THAT OTHERS DON'T | RDMN PODCAST CLIPS

Key Takeaways

Expert Quotes

CLAIMS FROM THIS EPISODE

KEY QUOTES

1.Fastest Chainrings and Chains for Road

2.Wider Tires Win on Rough Gravel

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

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READ THE GUIDE

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LIKED THIS EPISODE?

Fastest Chainrings and Chains for Road

Wider Tires Win on Rough Gravel

Fastest Chainrings and Chains for Road

Wider Tires Win on Rough Gravel