Originally Posted by
PiLigand
If you've been biking for a while, you're most probably best to go with the doubles. They are still geared to give you some easy combinations, but the census on triples is that they're for people just breaking into the sport who are especially worried about getting up hills.
The move to compact cranks and away from triple cranks is mostly a marketing move. The attitude expressed above is exactly what marketers want people to believe so that they'll ditch their older triple crank bikes to get a compact crank. In a few more years you'll see a single crank front (the higher end bikes already have them). Then people will want to move to single cranks to show that they are "serious" bikers. Don't want to sound cynical but the quoted comment is highly condescending and echoes marketing image more than anything else.