Praxis Works chainrings have earned a cult following for their strength and durability in the US, but their single ring isn’t exactly remarkable.
The main difference is that, while the twin and triple rings are cold-forged for grain-realigning strength and then machined, the single ring is stamped and then machined. We haven’t folded it or crushed teeth on it, though, despite a few boulder bangs, and it’s wearing well so far.
The teeth are standard depth rather than extended and fattened like SRAM’s XX1 or some other single-ring specific designs out there, which help improve chain security. The shoulders are also sloped and narrow rather than squared, and there’s no built-in bashring like on the new Hope ring.
It runs very smoothly with no suck even on dirty chains. The 32-38T sizes include odd numbers if you’re really fussy about your gearing too.
This article was originally published in Mountain Biking UK magazine, available on Apple Newsstand and Zinio.