djb

The selling point of a 1x has some merit for some off road stuff I guess, especially with the super wide cassettes now and the rear derailleurs that work so well.
For non technical bicycle buyers like my friend, it's the same thing as with friends in the past who bought bikes for touring, marketed as such, but bikes were too highly geared.

changing out your chain ring will be an easy fix, but it certainly helps to be more knowledgeable about bike gearing.

The ogres are still great bikes, and will retain their value, so keep them in good shape and be careful for theft.
their big plus, like the troll, is being able to easily take wide tires. They make great tough touring bikes.

djb

With my troll, I set it up specifically for touring heavy in Latin America. where I knew I'd be carrying more crap than ever before, and from traveling there, knowing I'd sometimes be on steep stuff, hence the mountain bike triple.
This is its gearing range. Works great and I can pedal it to a bit over 50kph, which is fine for me.

squirtdad

I am sure that is part of it, but i also think a lot of it is style and marketing. In some specific instances 1x12 makes sense, but has limitations as indicated by manufactures trying to do 5x60 cassettes (hyperbole), this happens repeatedly in cycling..... flat bars are great for real mountain biking, but IMHO are not great for anything else compared to drop and north road style bars, but mountain bikes were cool so you bought one and never got it dirt and trails, riding on the road with low gears and slow tires (not related by I predict that far sooner than you would guess the BSO in box stores will be 1x with wireless rear derailler, because it will get of cost to install shifter cables and adjust derailler)

ClydeClydeson

1X is an advantage in off-road riding as it greatly simplifies shifting. Trying to switch a 3x10 from 32-24 to 22-30 all at once at the bottom of a steep hill is a semi-reliable way to drop your chain and end up walking the hill, in my experience, but switching from the 24t cog to the 42t cog on a 1X is pretty easy.

If I were you, OP, I would get a larger chainring for the 1X setup, and see what is the largest 11-ZZ rear cassette you can manage. Then you will get your 38x11 (or whatever) large gear, but not lose the low gear, which may not be often used, but when you need it, you'll need it.

djb

Higgins, down the road and if you do bike mechanic stuff, you can keep an eye out for a mtb double setup used, but in the end the bikes are what they are, and you have the responsibility of buying them.. I hope the chain ring change makes it better for you.
There are other hybridy type bikes out there with multi cranksets if you aren't happy with doing changes, but the really wide tire thing is probably less common.

djb

Did it work out and were you able to get a larger ring rings?

Ron Damon

Two years later, Shimano offers a single-ring 36T and 38T Zee cranksets, and a 11-51T Deore cogset that mounts on standard hub splines. That's your 1x solution in 2023.

hybridbkrdr

I think 1x solution would be 36T crankset and 11-36T cassette.
In any case, there are lots of 39T etc cranksets out there. The Stronglight Impact might work (even though this is a 2 year old thread). Then there's a Sturmey Archer 42T model and the new Shimano CUES does come in a 40T single crankset (FC-U4000-1).