The Littlest Ring

[TiBones]

 

And that's the reason why I don't ride on my 11 that frequently.

I don't have the legs to ride the 11 (or 12 for that matter) much but watch out for me on the downhills!

 

[Reg Lizard]

Don't count on that, you only out weigh me by a very small margin

[Johan Bornman]

BigBen' date='

An 11 will wear much faster than a 12, as only about 4 teeth in contact with the chain, opposed to about 6 on a 12. The pressure on each tooth is higher, and the wear rate skyrockets.  

[/quote']

 

This is wishful thinking. Your cassette will wear other more usable sprockets long, long before the 11-tooth is worn out. Even in the days where you could still buy individual sprockets and thus kept your less-favourite sprockets for a long time, they never wore out.

 

Also, in reality it is only the last four teeth in a sprocket that gets any contact. This is easily proven to yourself by putting your bike in the big rear sprocket, applying pressure to the pedals and then going backwards tooth by tooth until you find the first one that isn't under pressure.