I've been frustrated with the performance of my Shimano 11 Speed front der. when running 46/36 chainring combinations on both my road and gg bikes with wide range 11 speed cassette's. I prefer this setup which I call "11 by 1 1/2", because it gives me a slightly better range of gear ratios than a 11 by 1; and uses most of the stock components from my original bikes. I'm not criticizing 1x11. I think that it is a great idea for GG and maybe most road riding. Just that to convert, I'd probably have to replace the rear der., crankset (or at least the chain ring), and the brake shifter on my stock bikes. My "11x1.5" setup's were working OK. The front shifts were fast and clean -- no dropped chains. My main problem was trimming the front der. to avoid chain rub. No matter how carefully I adjusted the position of the der. or tried to use the trim on the small chain ring (you get 1 half click on the inside), I was getting chain rub on the 4 highest gears using the 36, and the 4 lowest gears on the 46. I finally realized that the problem was the geometry of the der. cage, which is really designed to work with 50 to 53 tooth outer chainrings -- not a 46. Then I discovered that Shimano made a 10 speed CX specific 10 speed der. FD-CX70. The 10 speed Gevenalle BURD front der. will also likely work. I installed the FD-CX70 (28.6 clamp- $30 on Nashbar) on my road bike yesterday. While I haven't had a chance to take it out on the road for extensive testing, I found that installing the old style Shimano design with a short lever arm was much easier to adjust, works fine with 11 speed setups, and as I expected, I was able to get rid of the chain rub in all gear combinations. I plan to try the BURD front der. on my GG bike as well. I'll give a follow up report on my road test as well as the results on my GG bike. -- Update 3 road rides: Works very well. Lots of miles with mixed hills and flat rolling terrain. Everything works perfectly. If you are having issues with your 11 speed Shimano front der., then your solution , may be $30 away with the FD-CX70 which can be purchased for either narrow or wider seat tubes at Nashbar. I plan to try the BURD on my Haanjo at some later date, but I expect it will work just as well. Update -- Rumor has it that Shimano will revert to the short arm design on their new mech. 11 speed Durace front Der. Hmmmm- I guess I wasn't the only customer who didn't like the "now old" long arm 11 speed front der.
