Anyone doing 2x chain rings up front on an e-bike?

[richj8990]

Seems like the mid-drives have 1x for fairly obvious reasons; do the hub-drive e-bikes all have triple chainrings for range or are there some 2x ones? I'm in the 3rd chainring a lot now with the front hub conversion. Which is great and all, but I want to convert to 2x, in order to move the front derailleur over to the middle chainring and provide more space to put a wider tire in back. Right now even for 3x7 I can just barely fit a 2.25 in back. With 3x8 or 3x9 I could only do a 2.1. I'd like to do up to a 2.4 or 2.5 in back.

The highest top end range I've seen for an MTB double chainring is SRAM's 26/39. That should be OK, still checking to see if it's a three-piece crankset because supposedly a two-piece one is incompatible with the cadence sensor. If it's incompatible, the next one down is a Shimano Acera 22/36, not very good top range for an e-bike (the Shimano Alivio is 2-piece and is incompatible). I assume I cannot put on a road bike double chainring, correct? Is 2x not a good idea for hub drives because of the restricted range?

Also, if you have a mid-drive, do you have to stick with 1x or can 2x work with the sensors?

 

[Barryboy]

I think you'd be hard pressed to find a mtb frame that would fit a compact road crankset, the chainrings will contact the chainstays. I know because tried it once with a 50/34. I ended up with a Shimano Trekking crankset, a triple, but it has a 48 outer that juuuust fits. Google trekking or touring cranksets, they'll come in 48/32 or smaller. Which I think is what you're after? Bigger chainrings up front?

https://www.sram.com/sram/urban/products/via-gt

 

[rocky.289]

Some of the Haibike Yamaha have a duel front with 44/32

 

[Robopotomus]

I have the haibike sduro fullseven 6 with dual chai ring. Big ring is great for most forest tracks etc, small ring for technical stuff and riding with my non ebike buddies.

I did contemplate changing to a 1 x 10 setup, but have always prefffered a 2 x.