Bicycles with monoplat transmission: current trend or improvement in performance?

Each season bicycle manufacturers introduce news in the market to update and improve their models. These changes can be a new frame geometry, lighter materials or a different assembly and components. Within the world of mountain bike The latest trends have focused their focus on transmission. In five or six years we have gone from using three dishes to have the possibility of mounting a single dish. Monopath is a trend that is gaining great strength and more and more Bikers They opt for a Mountain Bike with a single dish. But what advantages and disadvantages do monoplat transmissions have? Is it just a matter of fashion or is there anything else? Next we analyze the pros and cons that you have to bet on monoplato mountain bicycles.

Up to 800 grams less weight

The fight against the scale unleashes many of the innovations that apply to bicycles. When using the monopath we are taking off a button, cable and covers, the diversion and between one and two dishes. In addition, the chain used is shorter than the two and three dishes chains; And because for now the monopath is used in the range groups superior, The materials in which dish, cassette and chain are built are lighter. Among all the pieces that we are taking the bike we can save between 500 and 800 grams.

More fluid changes

Probably, the greatest advantage of monopathing is its simplicity, even above weight. Using a single dish eliminates, above all, the choice to use this or that development according to the land. This directly influences that we forget the chain suckers. It has happened to us to be going down a path or a path and suddenly run into a small, but pronounced, elevation of the land, in which we stayed. We have to climb pins while we go down plate, and in that operation we get the chain. With the monopath we simply have to climb pins (in some change groups you can upload up to five with a single pulsation), and continue pedaling. In addition, monopath transmission provides us with a greater feeling of fluidity, and a finer and more soft touch. This is due among other things to the much more focused position of the dish with respect to the crowns of the cassette, which makes the crossing of the chain less.

Without overlapping developments

A priori, when we face a monoplat transmission with conventional two or even three dishes, we find lower development options. Those of several dishes offer up to thirty possibilities of combining dishes and crowns. In monopathing we can only use a maximum of 12 speeds. Having between 9 and 19 developments may seem an inconvenience, but the truth is that the reality of two and three dishes groups is different from the theory. Those who continue carrying groups of three dishes know that many of their combinations overlap, and that using the large dish with the fourth pinion becomes the same as using the medium dish with the second pinion. In addition, to avoid crosses and deterioration in the transmission, there are a series of 'prohibited' relationships, the small dish at 4 or 5 upper crowns, the large one at 4 or 5 lower, and the medium dish, and the medium dish reaching all but the Latest for each end. By removing the duplication of developments and the developments not recommended, we realize that, of the 30 developments that we have available, in the end it is recommended to use only half. In the bicycle monopathic, however, due to the most focused position of the dish with respect to the cassette, it is possible to use all the speeds available to the change.

 

Possibility of exchange dishes

In part to adapt the use of monopathing to most users, and in part to meet development needs according to different types of land, the size of the dish can be found in different measures, being possible to exchange it. While three -plates transmissions used to come standardized with a 44/32/22 and the double dishes with a 40/28 teeth, the change of these developments being quite cumbersome, with the monopath small for one older. We will not need the same dish to cross the plains of Castilla as the one we need to climb the Cantabrian cornice, and even if in the last SRAM models you already need some adapters and intermediate parts to exchange them, there is still the possibility of changing them.

Popeye spinach

With regard to the inconveniences of bicycles with monopathic transmission, perhaps the main one is that they are not suitable for all audiences. In some cases the eleven or twelve developments that we find in the cars can become very short for a large number of Bikers. Saving half a kilo of weight on the bike can be worth little if our legs are not able to move the developments we have.

A dish not to be able to govern them all

With a monopate mountain bike we will hardly find a dish that will give us optimal developments during all of our routes. If we put a smaller dish like 30, we can enjoy greater ease in the climbs, but as soon as the land becomes favorable, and with a cadence of 90 pedaling and a pinion of 11 teeth, we will barely reach 34 km/h/h , staying very soon without the possibility of contributing anything with our pedaling. On the contrary, if we put a plate of 34, we can go to 38 kms/h llaneando, but it is very likely that if our physical state is not high, we stay lying with the first hard ramps. And what does this tell us? If you like to move by clues or even roads, you are likely to find a development that allows you to take advantage of the descents without sacrificing the ups, and vice versa. If you like to climb on track and go down trails and trialeras routes, it will give you a little more. The good news is that both Sram and Shimano are working a lot in the dentados del Piñón, and while the Japanese are close to taking out a 50 -teeth dish that would allow us , Ready the cassette of twelve speeds, in addition to its patented ten teeth pinion that gives a large impulse in Llano.

Less dishes, but more expensive

The monopathic groups are at the forefront of technology, becoming high -end components. This makes bicycles with this type of transmission are not available to all pockets. Shimano has the cheapest groups, but, offers separately, we must pay around 500 euros to get a 11 -speed XT change group, reaching 800 euros the XTR. Sram starts with his NX group from 320 euros, and exceeds one thousand euros with the total SRAM XX1. Apart, the components are also somewhat expensive, varying the dishes between € 60 and more than 100 euros.

The monopath has come to stay

Especially focused on more competitive users, but without losing sight of the most relaxed users, which is why the industry is being directed. We assume that the greatest acceptance in the market, the more its price will be popularized, but this happens to find more open developments for all audiences. Who knows, that within not much of the triple dish sounds like the same thing that the velocípedos, Jurassic technology sound to us today.