Originally Posted by
ThermionicScott
I don't have a whole lot of experience with compacts, but when I borrowed a bike from a friend that had one, the amount of front-shifting (and then the rear-shifting to find the "next" gear) I needed to do was really annoying. In contrast, I'm very happy to spend 90-95% of my time in the middle ring of my triples.
That said, compacts have a siren call that many find hard to resist. I don't know if it's the simplicity of two rings, the OCD need to reduce overlap, or what.
Marketing.
The bike companies profit from SKU reduction (fewer bike models, fewer cranks, fewer front derailleurs, fewer rear derailleurs, perhaps fewer shift levers).
They want the populace to believe that triple cranks are dorky but compact crank setups with their non-traditionally small inner ring and pie plate sized big cog are not.
I've done some thought experiments to figure out how a compact could satisfy my needs, and that would be to size down the big ring so that it would cover more of the middle range. With the 11 or 12T top cog on cassettes, I wouldn't need anything bigger than 46T or even 44T.
46-36 x 12-13-14-15-16-17-18-19-21-23-25 11-cogs introduced in 2009 has the same range, spacing, and double shift behavior that I had back in 1996 with 50-40-30 x 13-14-15-16-17-18-19-21 8 speed because it gave me a low like 42x28 for the Rockies west of Boulder, CO and a straight block for the plains east with no need to change depending on where I rode.
If I wasn't 40 pounds over racing weight I might consider it.