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MATERIAL OF SIMON BILLEAU

Sram and Absolute Black are 2 of the brands offering the
single chainring. I personally bet the single chainring
will become the standard in triathlon, at least on flat or
lightly ondulating race.

Let’s start with the English-Polish brand, Absolute
Black. This company, created by a former designer from
Trek, CAD design/Physics ingenior and maybe more
importantly cyclist enthusiast, is specialised in non-
circular chainrings (double and single).

It’s the second one we focused on. Its name : « Aero Oval
1X DM ». It’s describing the Absolute Black’s features.
Everybody gets the « aero » and « oval » terms. 1X means
single chainring and « DM » is for « Direct Mount ».

But before we are going into the details of this piece
of art, I’d like to quickly launch out in a plebiscite for
the oval chainring. While not unanimous, studies show
that at least in a biomechanic point of view, there is an
advantage to use an oval chainring by smoothening the
dead points (high and low).

The pedaling pattern, which allows the 2 cranks to spin
around the axle, is a complex pattern.

The principle of an efficient pedaling pattern is to
reduce at its minimum the time spent at the high and
low dead points where no force can be transmitted to
the pedals. At these 2 points, the cranksets are at the
vertical.

It has been showed pedaling pattern revolution is
composed of 4 phases in which every phase has a
propulsive action. To decrease the impact of these 2 Let’s get back to the Absolute Black Chainring.
dead points, the phases including these 2 dead points
should maintain as much rotationnal speed as possible. On top of its good looking appearance (which
It is where the oval chainring can help. The oval shape is under a patent pending), it’s necessary to
allows to increase or to decrease some phases time describe preciselly its features as it doesn’t
lenght. The aim is to expand the time spent on the adapt to the whole crank range available on
propulsive phases where big muscles produce the power. the market and also because of there is also
some limitations due to the race specificities
(ground elevation).

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