Originally Posted by trainchaser

As to the triple vs double, there's a thread here on Bike Forums that has quite a number of folks praising the virtues of the triple and pointing out that the doubles are really designed more for the hard core road bike aficionados in their never ending quest to pare down weight. (...) With the advent of the Mountain Bike and the need to climb the only way to obtain more gearing was to add another front crank, there's a reason they came out with the triples and its not just cuz they look cool and you can brag about your bike having umpteen gazillion speeds...