Foldable Bikes Party: SRAM's 12-speed MTB group: making sense of the gossip

Monday, 15 February 2016

SRAM's 12-speed MTB group: making sense of the gossip

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As you may be aware, leaked photos are floating around the backwaters of the internet of a soon-to-be released 1x12 speed SRAM drivetrain with a whopping 10-50t range. SRAM has declined to comment on any of our questions about this group, but let's assess what this drivetrain might mean for mountain bikers when it’s released.

What's between the little ring and the granny gear?

While the range of this drivetrain appears to have been leaked, the exact tooth counts between 10 and 50 remain unknown. Is it possible that SRAM would simply carry over the tooth counts of its 1x11 drivetrain with the addition of a 50t cog? It's not only possible, but likely.

The leap from a 42 to 50t cog is a rather large jump, 19 percent, to be exact. However, this is not out of step for SRAM; consider that there’s a 20-percent jump from the 10 to 12t cog, and a 17-percent jump from 36 to 42t on SRAM's current 1x11 cassettes. There must be large gaps at some point on a 12-speed cassette with such a wide range. It might make sense to put them at the ends of the cassette. Afterall, the 50t cog is a bail-out gear if ever there was one.

So let’s assume the steps carry over with a 50t cog. If this proves to be the case, the tooth count would look like this: 10-12-14-16-18-21-24-28-32-36-42-50.