noimagination

Not in my case.

I rode a triple for decades (from before compact cranks were a thing), with my "racier" bike being a 53/39 and my commuter/knock around bike being 44/32/22. I've now replaced my triple bike (1995 Cannondale T700) with a bike with a compact crank. On the triple, the small ring got little use, except for:
- Really steep climbs. There are a few around here that are >20% for too long to muscle up, but I rarely ride those climbs anyway (maybe I'd use the small ring 1x/year on a steep climb).
- After I've bonked. I think this happened once.
- When a shifter malfunction (frayed shifter cable caught in shifter) blocked off the 3 largest cogs - I used the small ring on steep climbs for a few weeks while the new shifter came in and I got around to installing it.
So, most of the time on my single bike it was effectively a double ring, as far as my riding (and shifting) was concerned.
In reality, I lugged the small ring around as a psychological crutch. On long rides, or on big hills, I knew it was there if I needed it.

I still ride a triple on our tandem. Those lower gears are needed (at least, by us) on some of the climbs around where I live. I don't see that having 3 rings would cause more shifting than having 2, if we had 2 we would have to get a compact crank and/or a cassette with larger cogs, but the number of shifts would be pretty much the same, we just wouldn't have the high end gears we do now (if we went to a double, for the tandem I'd definitely sacrifice the higher gears for the lower gears - higher gears are fun but lower gears allow you to keep riding).

wheelreason

Chainrings are shaped like a cross section of a sphere, and everyone wants us to believe the Earth is a globe,coincidence? "Tell me about the hammers and feathers again George"...

Maelochs

Chain rings are flat, like the Earth.

indyfabz

Maelochs

So ... cats are why sometimes we drop chains?

BobbyG

I commute and ride in hilly Colorado Springs. My bikes include a 1x7, 2x6, 2x8, 2x10 and 3x7. Because the terrain is so non-flat, and my constant stop and start urban riding in traffic, and my fidgety nature, I am constantly shifting from high to low, and I don't feel the 2x and 3x setups require more shifting than the 1x. In fact, the 3x7 works well, and with its non-indexed front shift lever I can quickly drop from the high ring ratio to the much lower low ring in one shifter movement. It's a one-motion range jump the other bikes can't touch.

The 2x10 seems to take the most shifts to get from high to low, since, even with the compact double up front, I still have to run up and down 10 gears in the back. The 3x7 works well, as I can quickly drop from the high ring ratio to the much lower low ring in one shift. It's a one-motion range jump the other bikes can't touch.

Last month I borrowed a 3x7 bike and rode in flats of the mid-west for the first time in 30 years. Once away from traffic I really needed to only slightly trim my gear ratio, and that's where more, closely spaced rear gears would have worked better.

Two of my bikes have indexed integrated "brifters" that take the most motions to shift. The indexed and non-indexed downtube and bar-end and thumbies on the other bikes can be swept through the gears in one motion.

But overall, because the terrain and traffic conditions demand near-constant shifting, a few extra clicks here and there go unnoticed.

JohnDThompson 

Sheldon Brown has a good article on this issue:
https://www.sheldonbrown.com/gear-theory.html

Trakhak

The middle ring of a triple crank is for most cyclists the only ring they need to use most of the time. I maintain a fairly high cadence most of the time, so I rarely shift to the big ring for my riding, which includes lots of hilly terrain in Baltimore County, and I've used the small ring maybe three or four times this year at most.

Standard (i.e., spec'ed from the factory) double rings are compromised by having too wide a gap between the tooth counts for staying in one ring or the other, unless you're willing to cross-chain frequently. Decades of riding old-school road bikes trained me to avoid cross-chaining. Newer drivetrains tolerate cross-chaining better than the old setups, but it's still best avoided.

Steel Charlie

I'm long past all the flap about gears. I have 2x and 3x, the 3x for the longer rides JIC I need that bail out gear. Over the last 40 years or so I've learned that all I have to do is have a big enough cog that I can get around and use a gear that doesn't eat my knees wherever I am on the road.... But, I'm old, fat, and slow. YMMV

I'd never have a 1x, that trashcan sized cassette is beyond ugly IMO and I wouldn't have one even if it were given to me. But that might just be me.

Atlas Shrugged

Despite being a successful entrepreneur for decades, I've realized that I missed some of the business basics, and I'm always eager to learn.

I responded to a post about the supposed performance advantages of 3X systems in sportier riding situations, even though it was never adopted in competitive riding. The post also mentioned that despite the noticeable performance advantages, the bike industry stopped offering 3X in a collusive action for greed alone.

While there will always be some demand for 3X systems, just as for Horse Logging Harnesses and Penny Farthing bicycles, it is limited, and the market is generally cheap. If the performance gains were real, my point is the market does support costly products in cycling, such as an $800 Derailleur cage from CeramicSpeed, $16,000 S-Works Aethos without pedals, a $180 Pinarello Water Bottle Cage, and $5,000 Campagnolo Super Record Groupsets not to mention crazy prices for LightWeight wheels. The examples go on in every area of the sport, but the point is that 3X systems are no longer manufactured or developed because there are minimal to no practical advantages compared to modern drivetrain systems; thus, there is no market to sustain them.

Additional Edit. Check out the Silca site if you want examples of crazy-priced add-ons that the market supports, e.g. $175 titanium computer mount. Yet no one finds it profitable to offer 3X drivetrains? Even Rene Herse can manufacture and profitably offer a $800 niche friction derailleur!

Iride01 

This thread quickly became TLDR. So if someone else already said it, I'm going to say it again. Your 3x will likely have a lower low gear ratio than most any 2x bikes if we are talking common and in general. And very likely the same high ratio gearing. So really, IMO, your main consideration is if you need the low ratios you currently get.

Gear ratios are front teeth divided by back teeth. (on the bike, not in mouth) So they are easy to figure out.

Atlas Shrugged

The gearing range is determined by the capacity of the derailleur system and not the number of chainrings. A wide range 11 or 12-speed 2X system has the same gearing options available as any 3X system.

Broctoon

This is a really Larry thing to say.

I know people who think nobody should need more than two chain rings. Others love having three, but use the middle one the most. Still others spend equal time in each of three. Until you came along, LarrySellerz , I never met anyone who likes having three rings but uses the middle one the least.

Maelochs

Okay ... if you are a businessperson, you know better.

There is the ultra-high-end/luxury market, where the more ridiculous the price, the better----a $500 watch will sell better at $50,000 than $5,000 to certain customers, which is why people pay tens of thousands of dollars for a watch which is less accurate than the clock in their phones. Beyond a certain point, the ridiculous price ensures exclusivity ... not just anyone could afford to overpay this much for a simple timepiece.

There are also Very expensive watches (and other objects) which are not Ultra-high-end but are still very expensive ... the $5K to $25 K range, say ... A(enough watch experts here to fill in the blanks) that bring their wearers a very certain and serious satisfaction but Not simply because they are expensive .... well there are some trashy folk whop buy $10 K Rolexes ebcause they think that means something (and it does, but not what they think) and there are people who buy $10K or $20 K Phillipe Pateks because they have the cash but really like the watches, the feel and looks, the workmanship .... timepiece aficionados with big budgets.

With bikes ... there are people who pay a lot of money either because they can (remember that TrekMogul guy?) or because they want to buy the same bikes the pros ride ... orb better .... but most of them are riding them competitively (though not at the pro level.)

I personally conversed with a guy with an $18,000 bike (and this was a few years ago) because we both rode the same deserted bit of road which turned out to be private and watched by private security. He was a racer but he was a weekend racer who might have won a few Cat 3 and cat 4 races, riding in Pro 1-2-3 and being part of the peloton. He was enough into rising that he wanted the best bike for racing he could buy .... just as if he was going to race in a box-stock road-racing series, why not buy the fastest car he could? He spent all his discretionary income on bike stuff. His choice, his passion, his option.

There is Zero "performance" gain for a 3x system if you equate performance with speed or racing. Zero. Racers don't haul weight, and the gearing available with any 11- or 12-speed 2x system is low enough for any hill an unladen rider might want to ride .... or the rider will fail, but at the regional/state level, sometimes that happens. (It happens on the Pro Tour too, but usually only after injury or due to illness.) Otherwise, the people who design race courses consider the ability of the riders when deciding which climbs they include, just as they decide on the length of the race (usually two-thirds or less than a Grand Tour stage .... last road race I attended the pros did 68 miles, and the last crit, the pros raced 70 minutes.) Riders can get through with a 53-39x11-28 or 11-34 or whatever ... or use a 50-34 if the course has a lot of hills.

There is no gain to be had from the wider range of gears on a 3x, and the 3x weighs more.

HOWEVER ..... most riders Do Not Race. Most riders don't train three to five days a week, or ride 200 miles per week. And for those riders, at least the ones living in hilly terrain, a 3x DOES offer better "performance" in that it lets them work in a more favorable cadence range and still get up the hills, even when carrying groceries, camping gear, or just lots of water for a long ride where there won't be any safe water stops.

As I said above .... Most of those riders can get by with a wide-range 2x system, but that does not mean it is as good. The gaps between gears and the compromise at one end or the other (either they spin out on the downhills and pedal too fast on the flats, or are really struggling on the steep hills) is Bad Performance ... but for most riders, sourcing a 3x system is too much work. They basically decide to eat what the manufacturers feed them .... much as do many who would prefer rim brakes, or hated press-don't-fit bottom brackets.

I have a sweet 50-40-30 10-speed crank on the shelf, waiting for the right bike .... most people cannot be bothered to source and buy and store such stuff. Then again, I replaced all my press-don't-fit BBs with Wheels MFG threaded BBs... which most don't do.

Nobody is a "Super-Pro Tourer" who wants to build a $40,000 bike to drag gear around the world. There simply is no "Luxury/High-End" Touring market. There is no high-end touring market. People who buy touring bikes are planning to bash the snot out of them (gently) by loading them with as much gear as they need or can carry, and then riding them more miles in a year than most racers .... leaning them on trees or guardrails or on the ground, cleaning them very infrequently ... most tourers spend as much on their bags and other gear as on the bike, because a bike can be had almost anywhere but if you rip a bag and cannot so it ... Most tourers prefer steel and anything bullet-proof ....

All that aside (and here is the info that keeps getting ignored in these threads):

https://www.performancebike.com/shim...=1468&lg=fk191

There is a Ton of high-quality 3x gear out there. it just doesn't come standard on many bikes. Shimano (and I assume other manufacturers) Do offer really good 3x drive train parts. I don't know where the myth that 3x is gone, came from.

True, most bikes are not specced 3x and most bike-buyers are not interested in dropping several hundred dollars on drive train upgrades on a new bike .... Would we see more 3x on the road if more bikes were offere3d with 3x? Hard to say, because a lot of cyclists buy into the whole "cyclist" look, and try to look like racers .... and a lot of those that don't were rising 3x citi-bikes and cruisers which are no offered only in 1x because the riders didn't really bother shifting to get max performance anyway.

So ... yes there is a market and the major manufacturers service it. No, they do not advertise that they offer such stuff because it is probably cheaper and easier to offer fewer models with fewer parts (economies of scale ... produce a lot more of the same thing for less, or have to change production parameters more frequently to produce smaller runs of more different parts ... . simpler is cheaper, bigger is cheaper. So, the availability of 3x, and the potential benefits to many riders, is not advertised. The people who want it, will seek it out and pay the premium.

There Is a "lucrative" 3x market ... and it could be bigger, but it would cut into profits generated by teh 2x market, so ....

That's how I see it.

By the way ... it is quite possible that Shimano with its newly revamped drive train lines, will make MTB 3x totally compatible with road parts ... we shall see.

Maelochs

Yeah .... I don't see that.

First off, if I have a 50-38-28 triple and an 11-36 cassette, my low is 28x36. My high is 50x11. Which combination with two chain rings offers that?

The other obvious issue is gear spacing. Even if you Frankensteined a 2x system with a huge range, with 22 versus 30 or 33 rations, you would have have much bigger gaps between ratios ... and anyone who has hauled big loads up big hills can tell you how Un-optimal that is. The triple offers you more usable ratios .... and also enables you to climb in a wider range of low ratios .... It is Possible to shift the front derailleur under very heavy load ... sometimes ... and sometimes it is not a good thing to do. if however, I see I have a big hill to climb and can drop to the small ring tat the bottom, I now have ten or eleven low rations---not four or five--with which to tackle that hill.

Instead of staring in the bottom half of the big ring and trying to shift under pedal pressure (which is needed to keep the loaded touring bike from stopping on the hill) I can start near the top of the small ring and have lots of rear-shift ratios readily available.

Basically you just tried to explain how 22=33 ... I am not an engineer or a a mathematician, but you are not a salesman.

Iride01 

Can you give an example? You appear to be talking specifics and I did say I was talking what was common and in general.

On common road bikes, a 34 is the smallest ring for a 2x. On 3x a 30 is common. So for the same cassette a lower low with the 3x.

Usually I've seen that on 2x cranks to get a smaller small, you also have to get a smaller large ring. And that affects top end ratio which the 3x will be able to give.

Broctoon

People who want a 3x drivetrain:

- Those who are used to them because it's what they've always had, because for decades it was the only affordable way to get a really wide total gear range.

- Touring riders who understand gearing and know they need a really wide total range and will be well served to also have small steps at each shift. (These guys also are not too concerned about weight or complexity.)

- Those who think more is always better. "You only have 20 speeds? I have a 21 speed, and I'm going to upgrade to a 27 speed." They multiply number of chainrings by number of cogs, and just want the combo that will give the highest product.

terrymorse 

[QUOTE=big john;23021286]On my triple road bike, 52-39-30, I can do a lot of rides without ever using the small ring./[QUOTE]

Shoot, back when I was doing a ridiculous amount of climbing, I had a triple and almost never used the small ring. The grade had to be stupid steep to need that small ring.

Same for me. The big ring is fine for anything that isn't long and/or steep.

Maelochs

I am not concerned with silly people, or casual riders who want to look like racers ....

A couple of years back I needed to haul all my photo gear up a long, steep (for Flatahoma) hill to get to a good shooting spot on a short, very hilly road course. I can tel you that fully loaded, 34x32 is Not low enough after a day of riding a specifically hilly course.

Worst part was, the light was lousy on that hill so I didn't even get to stop with the excuse that I needed to shoot.

Broctoon

The maximum range of the cog cassette or cluster is limited by the rear derailleur. For example, a vintage short cage derailleur can only handle something like ~15 tooth range, from smallest to largest cog. Some modern derailleurs can take a 40 tooth sweep. The number of cogs dictates how big of a step you'll have at each shift within the total range. When you add an assortment of chain rings into the equation, you can get either a wider overall range, smaller steps, or both, with a given rear derailleur/cassette.


Perhaps it will have the same or slightly larger range, but at what cost? A 2x crank will have 52 or 53x39, or 52x36, or maybe 48x34, something like that. At the back end, you can get as wide as a 10 by 50-ish cassette. (These cassettes and derailleurs are pretty expensive.) You typically only see these on 1x systems, but there may be examples of a 2x with a cassette that wide. Lowest range is 34x50, for 18 gear inches. Highest is 48x10, for 130 gear inches. A cheap, widely available 3x9 system with something like 30-39-50 and moderate 11-42 cassette offers a range of 19 to 123 gear inches. Hardly a noticeable difference, at a fraction of the price.

I would argue that few riders ever need a ratio lower than 20 or higher than 120 gear inches, but I suppose it's nice that further extremes exist.

Atlas Shrugged

So you have a 3X system with an 11-speed cassette and 47-tooth capacity derailleur which sounds unique. Your system would have numerous redundant ratios in the 33 you mention so the advantage if any is minimal. Regarding my salesmanship, it seems that the market has decided that 3X is dead-end technology and people aren't buying 3X systems anymore. If anyone's sales skills should be questioned it should be the 3X advocates!

Broctoon

I bet in the sub-$1000 range, the category with the most bikes sold every year is 1x1 coaster brake, and second most is 3x something. All those cheap, department store mountain bikes (thousands sold every day across the U.S.)? Almost all 3x drivetrains.

Maelochs

Since you missed it above I am re-posting this link to a page full of imaginary products which do not exist because no major manufacturer sees any profit or purpose in making them and offering them for sale .... https://www.performancebike.com/shim...=1468&lg=fk191

Maelochs

Big box stores sell the most bikes by a huge margin ..... the details are out there, and somewhere in a post here but I don't care .....

Broctoon

4,630 WalMart stores in the U.S. If each one averages just one mountain bike per week, that's more than two hundred thousand 3x drivetrains per year, from WalMart alone. They don't need anyone to hype the 3x; it sells itself.