Sram Rival 1

Anyone use this groupset on their gravelly bikes? With all the rain lately I am stuck inside looking at stuff. This option seems like something I might try. 40t front with an 11-36 in rear.  Can swap out rings to suit riding.

I'm interested in this or the force 1 group.  Would love to ditch the FD.

I have the Rival 22 Hydraulic group on my cross bike.  It is fantastic. 

Other than weight - they only real downside of the group - compared to the Red or Force offerings is the crank stiffness.  

I have no first hand experience but plan to go Rival 1x on my future GG build. Rival seems to be the best bang for your buck and the one-by setup offers better drivetrain alignment and fewer things to fail. If you have a clutch rear dérailleur on a single chainring you can probably eliminate dropped chains entirely. With a well chosen gear range you don't really lose anything, but the jumps between gears will be more noticeable. No big deal if you don't do many group rides where you'd need to match someone else's pace or if you aren't sensitive to cadence changes.

It's not Rival 1, but I've been riding Force 1 for the last six months.  I cheat a little by using a Shimano rear derailleur and cassette with the SRAM crank and chain.  (The rd has a clutch.)

The drivetrain is silent.  Works great.  And I don't miss the in-between cogs.  With a 2x setup, I tended to skip cogs with just about every shift, anyway.  With a 11-42T cassette, I get almost the same spread of ratios that I had with a 2x road setup.  I don't miss the fd at all.  It's pretty rare that I wish I had the 5-10 rpm difference that a 2x could have provided. 

I'm in the process of collecting parts for a full Force 1 drivetrain myself.  Hopefully It'll be running by January.

Here's my build list:
- Sram Force 1 shifter - Mechanical version since I'm not changing out my brakes.
- Sram Force 1 crank with a 42t - Most likely I'll stick with this
- Sram Force 1 type 2.1 rear derailleur long cage
- Sram XX1-Dome 10-42 - Got a good price on it so why not.

I'm looking forward to not having to deal with the FD not shifting well, chain coming off, etc.  Looks like Rebecca Rusch ran a similar setup at Gravel Worlds except with a 44t chainring so I have no worries. 

At Dirty Kanza, Rebecca Rusch had trouble with shifting of the rd in the mud . . . but then, most people not running electronic Di2 rear derailleurs did.

I just built up a gravel bike with: Sram Rival Shifters, Sram Force Long Cage derailleur, XX1 10-42 cassette and Force Crankset 42t. Here's a little review I did on the shifters. Working on reviews on the bike and rest of the components soon. 
http://brokenspokebikes.com/blogs/news/84294980-review-sram-rival-11-speed-shifters
 

My new bike is the CX1 Rival with 40T up front. I swapped the stock medium cage r/d for a long cage and the cassette for a Shimano XT 11-40. Shifting is great. I love the double tap. I run the same system (double tap) on my road bike. It's great not having the f/d although it does take some getting used to not having the closer gearing that you get on a 2x setup with an 11-32 cassette...but so far it's not really been an issue. Top speed is definitely down on the road but really...I don't need to get that fast anyways. I spin out at about 28mph on the downhills but when on the flats it's not a problem. My bike also has the Rival HRD brakes. Right now...I'm not so happy with them. Good stopping power but I get lots of rubbing and some clicking/grinding in the rear that I can't figure out. Rubbing is annoying and there's barely a paper width clearance between the rotor and pads that it's impossible to adjust to prevent it...especially since the rotors aren't perfectly straight out of the box and despite best efforts...there's still the slightest wobble which makes contact with the pads because of the lack of clearance. 

At the Rocheport Roubaix here in MO. I was talking to a guy who said he was running a Shimano XT 11 - 42 with a Rival 1 med cage with a 40t chainring. Anyone else running this? Have you had any clearance issues? 11 - 28 is tough on these old knees and makes for a brutal climbing day. 

I am running that setup. I have Rival 1 with 44t ring and 11-42 XT M8000 cassette. It works ok. I sometimes feel I don't have the "right" gear. There are some jumps in that big cassette. It isn't a problem of climbing gear, or high speed pavement descending gear. The problem is riding a -1% false flat with a 15mph headwind. That is where I see want a different gear the most.

FWIW the XT 11-42 is one of the heaviest 11 speed cassettes you can buy. I would try the SRAM PG1170 11-36 next if I were you. It is going to be over  25% easier on the easy range and not be as jumpy.

I'm running a Rival 1 with an e*thirteen 9-42 cassette and a XX1 crank with a 36 tooth chainring.  Love this setup, but the cable loop on the Rival 1 derailleur made shifts sticky and shift effort kind of high.  Why they didn't put a pulley there I just don't understand.  I needed to learn 3d printing at work, so one of my personal projects that I used to learn on was this redirect pulley housing.  Inside there's a stainless steel sealed bearing pulley that I bought in a small lot off eBay.  Now the cable housing runs straight and shifting is fingertip light and super crisp.  I'm sure someone still makes these things from back in the V-brake era.  If you're gonna run a Rival 1 I'd highly recommend something like this.  The difference is like night and day.
   

I just bought a Trek Crockett 5 with SRAM 1X 40t and 11-32 cassette. Only ridden a little so far so not a good feel for it yet. However, my HT MTB has the SRAM 1X with 10-42 cassette. I love the 1X on the MTB and have plenty of gear regardless of terrain. However, I'm anxious to see how the 1X works on the Crockett which going to be using primarily for gravel. Once I hit a few tough gravel roads and get a feel for the gearing I'll report back. In my mind, I'm thinking an 11-36 would be good for hilly stuff without having big jumps in gearing when I'm on a flat road. I'm hoping the 11-32 will be a good option on relatively flat routes. \n \nQuestion I have for those who switch cassettes often, do you have to add links to your chain or do you swap out chains with your cassettes to keep from having to add or remove links?

I am running a 1x set-up:

Rival Brifters: cheaper than Force, same function and barely any weight difference. My experience is that alloy lever blades can bend a lot before breaking.

Rival 1 long cage derailleur. Indeed, strange cable routing, made even worse since my bike runs RD cable along the chain stay.

XT 11-46 Cassette: same gear range as SRAM Xd 10-42, but much cheaper. This cassette has the first 10 cogs the same as the 11-42, but with the 46 in place of the 42, so a big jump from 36 to 46. If you want smoother gaps in the climbing range, get the Sunrace 11-46 cassette, since it has better jumps on the big cogs (but of course the trade of is bigger jumps elsewhere).

Sram carbon crank with Absolute Black 42t oval direct mount ring

Only have 2 rides on it, but indeed, on solo rides the big gaps are not a huge deal. The cassette is the same as my previous 10 speed 11-36 cassette, with the 46 added.

I'm making the leap as well - ditching my 2x10 for a Rival 1 crankset (42t) and an 11-42 cassette. 

I've ridden 1x10 on my fat bike and 1x11 on my mountain bike for the last year+, and I love it. As others have mentioned, I don't find the jumps between gears to be a big deal, in fact I don't even really notice it. Another one of those things that people make a bigger deal about when looking at numbers than actually riding bikes, imo.  

Smithhammer, I've thought about that setup you are doing as well. The 42t chainring will give you a little more top end and the 42 on the rear would give you a little more climbing gear. Let us know how it works. I'm giving my 40t, 11-32 a tough test today and tomorrow and will see how it works.

Will do! I know what works for me for mtb riding with 1x (30t x 11-42), but it's going to be a little bit of experimenting with it for gravel. I live in the Rockies, so some of my gravel routes can involve a fair bit of climbing/descending. Of course, one of the nice things about 1x is that it's so quick and easy to change chainrings if you want, so I'll start with 42t and see how it works....

Anyone have experience with running a 40 tooth chain ring on Force 1x with an 11-40 XT cassette? Seems like the sram and shimano cassettes are interchangeable as far as cable pull goes but just want to make sure. Looking for a good gear range for Almonzo and Kanza. Thanks

JGamm wrote:Anyone have experience with running a 40 tooth chain ring on Force 1x with an 11-40 XT cassette? Seems like the sram and shimano cassettes are interchangeable as far as cable pull goes but just want to make sure. Looking for a good gear range for Almonzo and Kanza. Thanks

I have run a Force 1 x system with a 11-40 XT cassette and had no problems.  Mine was 46t up front, but that doesn't really matter.

JGamm wrote:Anyone have experience with running a 40 tooth chain ring on Force 1x with an 11-40 XT cassette? Seems like the sram and shimano cassettes are interchangeable as far as cable pull goes but just want to make sure. Looking for a good gear range for Almonzo and Kanza. Thanks

Yes, I am running the XT 11-46 cassette with my Rival 1x set-up(see above). 
Sunrace also makes 11 speed cassettes in a few different sizes.