Steel Charlie

Life is too short to ride something that ugly and stoopid

And BTW the 3x is just fine as well

razorjack

conversions to 1x9 or 1x10 were popular ~10 years ago, Now You almost can't buy 2x drivetrain, can You? Probably Tourney, Altus and Acera still have it ....
(of course I use 2x11s on my road bike, but I have climbs up to 15-20% (a for few hundred meters))

RB1-luvr

2 and 3xs forever.

cyccommute 

I’m not a racer but the way I use triples on mountain bike rides is close to 3 separate 1x’s. At the top of a hill, I might shift up to get more speed (and to keep the chain from flapping around) but I don’t do a whole lot of shifting on the front when climbing. Again, I have this weird little device that allows me to change the character of the bike by simply pushing a lever.

In my experience, chain suck is caused by the chain hanging up on the chainwheel and being sucked into frame. The hang up is due to a burr on the chain that doesn’t allow for the chain to release. Bumps had nothing to do with it. Chain slap could occur but that was easily fixed by going to a larger ring to tighten up the system on downhills. Fairly common to do that before clutch derailers.

McFlyRides

“Close spacing, wide range: pick one” is the case on my 105 di2. I would give up the range for tighter spacing. I find it odd that even dura ace doesn’t make a really tight cassette. What are the pros doing in a TT? Maybe they just need the top gear?

It doesn’t seem the racers are driving the gearing choices—someone is asking for a 1:1 ratio on a road bike, and it’s not enthusiasts from the Midwest like me or racers, it seems. But someone wants to climb hills at walking speed.

The FD isn’t dead on the road. I may not want or need a 34T in back, but I don’t want to spend all day in the big ring either.

I do love my 1x12 for XC. I don’t miss the triple front at all.

Andrew R Stewart 

I can only try to imagine the front shifting problems when running E assist. Front shifting under human loads is bad enough for the bike.

Unrelated story about human nature and ego. In the 1980s when Avocet was a strong player in the bike world they were known for their vapor wear, they would start marketing a new item well before actual availability was had (and before actual working preproduction examples were in hand even, the better to control development costs and attract investors for the jump to full production and a way to convince the buying public to hold off on getting competitor's products). The Avocet 20 cycling computer was their main electronic product and it was a smashing success by most all metrics. Avocet wanted to follow up with a fancier computer with more functions. The Avocet 50 cycling computer was developed. However given Avocet's nature it took close to two seasons to finally bring it to market. Our Avocet rep finally was able to take orders knowing actual delivery was going to happen that year. I asked him where his big orders were located, expecting to hear of most of NYS, PA, VT (all being in his territory) due to the hills and that the model 50 had an altimeter. But he said it was his Long Island dealers that were the biggest. Surprised I asked why het thought so and he said that when the big hill in one's area is a highway overpass one will want to crow about how many hundreds of feet they climbed that day (going up and over then back again over and over adding 20' a time to total feet climbed). Many people will grasp for whatever they feel raises them above their fellow riders. Now it's Strava Andy (sorry but Heat88 mentioned overpasses and my mind wandered)

ScottCommutes

My guess is that the 2x and 3x systems came from belt driven shop equipment back in the days of steam power and water power. Even today, many (electric) drill presses still have that system. There's nothing magical about either system.

As people have gotten less mechanically inclined, the 2x and 3x systems have developed a reputation as "hard to use". One day maybe I'll start a thread on how to teach someone how to properly employ a front derailleur.

So for people that want a simpler option and don't need a lot of gears, 1x is a fantastic alternative.

Also, remember that 2x by 7x or a 3x by 7x still contain an entire 1x by 7x.

For people that can learn to shift and need extra gears, the front derailleur opens up all kinds of possibilities. I believe the front derailleur will lose market share to the people that ride on the relative flats and can forgo it, but it will remain a superior option for riders that need more gears.

Heat88

Why would you need to do any shifting when you're using the electric motor?

Dan Burkhart 

It has been done. 30 some years ago, Sachs introduced the Orbit which was a two speed internal paired with a 6 or 7 speed cassette. They followed that up with a three speed version and Sturmey Archer followed suit. They did not exactly take the world by storm.
here's a look at a more recent attempt.

andrewclaus

I'm amazed at how quickly 1x took over the trails. Anyone riding a 3x MTB is obviously a dinosaur. That represents a lot of sales in the industry.

I get comments from some about the road triple on my '83 Trek 520. I actually agree--for me a 2x works better, but no thanks to a 1x. And I'm not going to change just because of current fashion. I'm old enough to be a retrogrouch.

It does take some skill to adjust a triple FD correctly. Once you have that skill, it's very simple. I'm surprised/dismayed at how slowly some fellow volunteers I coach at the non-profit shop gain that skill. And nearly every bike we see has a triple.

zacster

But did it shift well? I didn't watch the video to find out. I figured it had been tried but never successfully. The second part of my post though is coming, universal electronic shifting. It will be cheaper than mechanical mostly because you do away with the shifter and replace it with cheap buttons and software control. Sram is on the right track, except they are still expensive.

2_i 

When trying to catch a glimpse of what the TdF competitors are riding, I consistently see 2x there. On the home front, my main regular bike has a quad, and my main folding bike has 3 shifters. What manufacturers provide tends to be just the start.

Sierra_rider

Call if chainsuck or chain slap or whatever else...basically dropping the chain on hard downshifts. Yes, you should momentarily de-load the drivetrain for the downshift, but that doesn't always happen in a racing scenario. I'm usually changing gears every few seconds and am frequently shifting the entire range of the cassette in only a short length of the track. The simplicity of running the 1x in racing was my original attraction to it, but I've found no detriments to the 1x in non-racing scenarios either. I'm not doing flat rides either, very uncommon for me to do a ride with less than 100' gain per mile.

pdlamb

I think you're off by at least 20 years. It was about 50 years ago I wore out my Sturmey Archer 3-speed hub in four years of sporadic riding. The bike shop owner told me, "As many hills as there are where you live (and I live there too), you need something that can stand up to climbing those hills" and sold me my first derailer bike.

grumpus

Many mid-drive e-bikes can't really have multiple chainrings, and don't need them anyway; there's nothing about a hub-motor bike that would stop it from having a front derailleur, although other factors may prevent it. Do you think Europe has no mountains?

grumpus

Why would you not?

cyccommute 

You said “big bumps” in addition to downshifts. In my experience, downshifts aren’t where chain suck occurs. It’s on up shifts where the rear derailer doesn’t have enough tension to pull the chain off a damaged tooth…most commonly on the inner ring. “Dropping the chain on downshifts” is a different beast altogether and is usually due to poor derailer setup.

This is a large part of the problem with mountain bikes. They are set up for some sort of track or short distance riding. I use them over 10s to 100s of miles over terrain that is usually all up or all down with grinding uphills with little front shifting and fast downhills with little front shifting on the downhill side. The thing that a triple gives me is the ability to climb and the ability to actually pedal when gravity takes over. I don’t have to coast because I’ve run out of gearing on the downhill side.

Here’s a comparison of a modern 34/11-50 12 speed 1X to my ancient 44/32/20 11-40 10 speed 3x. The 1x spins out at around 24 mph. I can still pedal for another 6 mph. That comes in handy for rides like this one where I hit a high speed of 35mph and had about 15 miles of pavement to ride before I could get off on to the dirt (on this ride there was about 5 miles of riding railroad ties which I wouldn’t suggest)

In answer to efriis@mac.com question, I do hate to say that triples are a part of history now. They really shouldn’t be. Not all bicycling nor all mountain biking is racing.

t2p

all I gotta say is try it

did not want a 1x bike - actually attempted to avoid the bike / particular model bike equipped with a 1x drivetrain

got the bike with the 1x drivetrain

like the bike with the 1x drivetrain !

Camilo

I've had triples and always like them and they shifted easily and perfectly. I set my wife's road bike up with a triple and same thing - easy enough to adjust and no issues shifting. I always liked that I could use the center ring most of the time and just shift to the big or small occasionally. I now have a couple of "compact doubles" and, while they work just fine, I find myself shifting the front a lot more.

I recently got an inexpensive (but very perfectly functional and fun) gravel bike with a 1X9 Microshift Advent. It works fine, but with the particular chainwheel it has, lacks 1 or 2 high gears that I occasionally miss. Since I use that bike almost exclusively to ride by myself or with my wife, it's not a big deal. If I was riding with equal or faster riders on the road in a group, I'd miss them for sure. But I need the low gears it provides, with the largest cassette spec'd for the RD (actually 2t larger), I get that and will always err on the side of low gears vs. large. sp I'm not tempted to replace the chain wheel. But it is a compromise for mixed riding I do with it.

I think the triple has a bad rap.

Camilo

Apparently e-bikes eliminate this need.

Trakhak

Dan was referring specifically to internally geared hubs that incorporated cassettes/freehubs.

spclark 

Which is why I bothered to swap for an x3 crankset (thanks eBay!) last year, after learning how to add different cogs to the 5-speed Maeda FW my 1972 Motobecane Grand Record came with for the hills where I live now.

Used to live & ride in (flattish) NE Illinois, now I'm in HILL & COULEE country S of La Cross WI. Major change in riding habit needed, major change in gearing for the roads here!

spclark 

Same here. Maybe not suited to 90% of the country, but when it's worth it, it's worth having big time!

spclark 

+1 for that sentiment.

wheelreason

So you can buy into the whole "assist" thing, and not have to admit you are riding an electric motorcycle.