SHIMANO FC-RX600 GRX chainset 46/30, double, 11-speed, 2 piece design

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The latest crop of gravel specific road drivetrains offer lower gearing than a typical road bike. Groups like Shimano GRX, SRAM Force AXS Wide and Campagnolo Ekar are designed to help you deal with steep dirt roads with loose surfaces as best as possible through wide range gearing. In the case of 2x gravel groups, the new “sub-compact” cranksets have smaller chainrings than the common 50/34 compact rings many road bike come with. New gravel friendly road cranksets include the 46/30 Rotor, 46/30 FSA Adventure, 48/32 Praxis Zayante, the 46/30 Shimano GRX RX FC600 and the 48/31 Shimano GRX FC-RX810. How do you know if this lower gearing is for you? A Brief History of the Compact Crankset

With a wider spread of gearing available across 12-speed cassettes, Shimano now offers a 54/40t double crankset for the Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 R9200 groupset in place of the traditional 53/39t. No other combination or mix of rings will work. Due to special mounting construction, aesthetic bolt covers are not offered for this design Optimized to each size separately. 30T- 9% ; 32T - 8% ; 46/48T - 10-11.2% ; Timing of 108 -110.5° after TDC (top dead center) - Ideal for climbing. Patent PendingThe wide-range gearing offered by sub-compact chainsets means triples have almost vanished from road bikes. We've seen two in the last couple of years, both on touring bikes. Place the spacer (if required) on the drive side of your crank, this has the effect of pushing the crank rings out slightly and thus allowing proper adjustment on the lower limit on the FD You can’t easily swap the number of chainrings your bike is set up for, because the front derailleur and associated shifter will be specific for your setup and would need to be replaced, too.

Yep. I noticed this with a few people I've ridden with - particularly on gently rolling terrain - they were swapping frequently between big-big and small-small. Fitting a wider range cassette isn't really a proper solution. I don’t think even the 50/34 believers can ride at 50kph by themselves,” Arizaga adds: “However, you could always increase cadence to 100rpm and develop 52kph or 105rpm and reach 55kph.”

It is also worth being aware that many of these gravel inspired subcompact cranksets also adhere to the new “wide” standard. The chainrings sit 2.5mm further out than a standard road compact crankset. With some frames, this difference alone will require that a wide derailleur be used in conjunction. Sometimes some experimentation at the shop level is necessary to figure out how things will work. Subcompact Crank Conclusions The impetus for the existence of chainsets like the Energy Modular BB386EVO has come from gravel bikes, whose rise has had bike and component manufacturers taking a second look at the gearing options they offer. Any bike that's ridden away from roads needs lower gears, but gravel bike gears don't need to be quite as low as mountain bike gears. The result has been sub-compact chainsets and the widest range of options has come from FSA, which calls them Adventure cranks and now offers six different sub-compact chainsets.