Jonas Vingegaard uses 1x gearing for Tour de France opening stages

Jonas Vingegaard and his Jumbo-Visma teammate Wout van Aert have used SRAM 1x (single chainring) setups for the opening stages of this year’s Tour de France, the defending champion having used the same system during the recent Critérium du Dauphiné, a race that he won.

Jumbo-Visma switched from Shimano to SRAM groupsets at the start of the year, and SRAM says that the decision to run 1x is entirely down to the team and riders rather than commercial considerations.

This pic and lead pic: © Zac WiLLIAMS SWpix.com (t-a Photography Hub Ltd)

“We don’t push Jumbo to use 1x gearing and there is no marketing around this, although it helps a lot, of course,” says SRAM’s Marie Didier. “The riders have the tools at their disposal, then they do what they want. They control what they do and we couldn’t impose them to use a product if we wanted to.”

🇫🇷 #TDF2023tr

Jonas back in the front of the bunch. 👊

𝙁𝙪𝙡𝙡 𝙨𝙥𝙚𝙚𝙙 towards the Jaizkibel, the final climb of the day.

⏱️ 1'15"
🏁 23 km pic.twitter.com/3uCi5qhoMy

— Team Jumbo-Visma cycling (@JumboVismaRoad) July 2, 2023

We showed you last week how Jumbo-Visma use Wolf Tooth LoneWolf Aero chainguides on their road and time trial bikes to help keep the chain in place without a front derailleur.

> Running 1x? Wolf Tooth introduces LoneWolf Aero chainguide to avoid a dropped chain 

The World Tour has long threatened to turn to 1x (or single chainring) gearing set-ups... but is 2023 the year that it finally takes hold?

Earlier in the season Victor Campenaerts used a single chainring system from Classified, and a few weeks ago Primoz Roglic used a gravel groupset on the final stage of the Giro. With Jonas Vingegaard and Wout van Aert – two of cycling's biggest names –  now using 1x,  has it (once again) become a choice too popular for us amateur roadies to ignore?

Is history repeating itself?

Before we take a look at Vingegaard's bike that we spotted this week at the Critérium du Dauphiné, let's cast our minds back to the last time that the pro teams made a concerted effort to ditch the little ring. Some of you might remember it wasn’t exactly a huge success!

> Should you run a 1x set-up on your road bike? 

It was of course the Aqua Blue team five years ago that hit the limelight, often for all the wrong reasons, whilst riding their 3T Strada bikes that could only run 1x set-ups. 

The Strada (which is now available with a front mech), promised aero benefits thanks to the lack of front mech mount. However, the SRAM groupsets with 3T cassettes caused an almighty Twitter storm when Rick Delaney, the team owner no less, posted: "This lab rat thing is costing us results". This was following a shipped chain by one of his riders in the Tour de Suisse breakaway.

The here (and the now)

Fast forward a few years, and our next significant development in 1x setups being used for road stages was the Classified system on the bike of Victor Campenaerts at the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad classic. 

As you might have heard by now, the Classified system ditches the front mech in favour of a special rear hub with a reduction gear inside. It’s tech that thoroughly impressed us, so much so that it won our "Money No Object" component of the year in 2022.

Since then loads of wheel manufacturers clearly also see a future with Classified in it, and the likes of Hunt, Parcours, Enve, DT Swiss, Mavic and Reynolds, to name just a few, are now on board.

> Review: Classified Powershift Kit & Wheelset

As good as the Classified system is it does still have its cons, especially in the pro peloton. No, we’re not talking about Campenaerts having to walk up the Muur on his 62-tooth chainring setup, but rather wheel changes. Unless everyone chose to use it, which seems unlikely, then spare wheels won’t have the required tech hiding inside.

Oh, and it’s also questionable how much lighter the system actually is. This then raises the question of if it's actually worth ditching the tried and tested front mech.

1x looking pretty in pink!

> Check out Primož Roglič’s Giro-winning Cervelo S5

Arguably 1x’s biggest success in the pro peloton was just a few weeks ago, when Roglic used his SRAM XPLR-equipped Cervelo R5 to climb his way into pink at the Giro, winning the stage by a whopping 40 seconds. 

However, the supposed benefits of a 1x system, such as the weight saving, potential aero benefit and better chain line, were overshadowed somewhat by a chain drop on the steepest section of the course, resulting in a push by Roglic's ex-ski jumping teammate.

Roglic’s setup used SRAM’s gravel XPLR XG-1271 cassette paired with a Red AXS XPLR rear mech to give him some absolutely tiny gears; the 40T chainring upfront and 10-44t gearing at the back resulted in a sub 1:1 gear ratio which certainly kept the eventual Giro winner spinning even on the multiple sections over 22%.

The end of the road for 1x?

> BMC prototype aero superbike spotted at Dauphine

So after that, did Jumbo–Visma decide that enough was enough? Well, no! In fact, it would appear that the Dutch team has doubled down on single chainrings.

Vingegaard used a 1x setup on two stages of the Dauphiné and in both of the first two stages of this year's Tour de France. 

Our shots from the Dauphiné showed Vingegaard using a 50T aero SRAM front chainring paired with a 10-33T SRAM Red cassette.

The ratios

> All the gear? Check out the gearing choices of the pros

Jumbo–Visma clearly reckons the gearing is sufficient for at least some stages of the Tour de France, and the first couple of days have hardly been flat. 

The biggest gear that this 50x10 gear combo gives is equivalent to using a 55x11, which seems like more than enough for a rider that rarely contests the sprints.

At the lower end, the 50x33 combo gives a gear ratio of just 1.51 although reports say that Vingegaard has also used a 10-36T cassette.

The benefits of 1x

> Lightweight v aero: which is best?

As we mentioned earlier, a 1x setup does bring plenty of benefits, especially to pro teams looking for every marginal gain. For example, there’s the potential aero benefit of removing the front mech and, in Jumbo-Visma's case, replacing it with a Wolf Tooth Lone Wolf Aero chainguide. For me or you this would probably be negligible, but for the pros who spend most of their races averaging more than 40kph, small changes can result in small savings.

In addition SRAM says you can also achieve a better chain line, which might offer better efficiency than a more traditional 2x setup.

They say every pro has a con and that is most likely the case here as it will mean that when not climbing, more time will also be spent down in that 10T cog. The smaller the sprocket, the greater the drivetrain losses. You win some, you lose some...

> 8 cheap ways to get a lighter bike — save a kilo or more

Of course, the main reason we suspect Vingegaard has opted to use this set-up is weight.

Not only can you get rid of the front mech, which is 170g including the battery, but you also lose the inner chainring which is another 40g or so. A SRAM spokesperson told us that this means Vingegaard can race on an aero bike (Cervelo S5) that weighs similar to his climbing bike (Cervelo R5). 

That ain’t right

One other feature of Vingegaard's bike caught our attention at the Dauphiné and that’s the shifters.

Whilst the rest of the team rides around on the taller current generation Red AXS hoods, Vingegaard’s bike has shifters that resemble the later Rival or Force AXS with a much lower profile.

Could these be shifters off a new generation of Red groupset? We wouldn’t mind betting that the new Red groupset will indeed follow this design language, but the larger shifter buttons lead us to believe that these are just modified Force levers with fancy graphics and perhaps a few internal weight savings.

Is 2023 the year that 1x rules the peloton?

A.S.O./Aurélien Vialatte

With Vingegaard and Van Aert using it at the Tour de France, 1x's profile has already been boosted. Like it or not, 1x has become a feature of road racing, and perhaps it's here to stay this time. The dawn of 12-speed groupsets has meant that 1x is inevitable, as gear jumps get smaller whilst still providing pro riders with just about enough range.

🇫🇷 #TDF2023tr

Jonas back in the front of the bunch. 👊

𝙁𝙪𝙡𝙡 𝙨𝙥𝙚𝙚𝙙 towards the Jaizkibel, the final climb of the day.

⏱️ 1'15"
🏁 23 km pic.twitter.com/3uCi5qhoMy

— Team Jumbo-Visma cycling (@JumboVismaRoad) July 2, 2023

That said, don't expect every pro rider to be jumping ship from the double chainset. We expect to see 1x being used more often but certainly not on every stage. Yet...

Let us know if you’d consider a 1x road bike down in the comments section below