Originally Posted by grolby

Yes, I'm well aware of that. 1X makes a hell of a lot of sense for cross, in fact. Dealing with two chainrings is a PITA when you're trying to focus on driving your bike with your heart rate over 180 for an hour. I'm still racing a double, but they're disappearing from cyclocross extremely rapidly.

13 speed really will be an inflection point, in my opinion - probably not to the point that all doubles are killed forever, but at that point 1X becomes truly feasible for road riding. For racers and fit club riders, anyway. A 50T chainring with a 13-speed 11-36 cassette gets you all the range of a 53-39 double with an 12-28 cassette, with similar spacing to what you get on an 11-speed 11-28 cassette. It's pushing things a bit, yes - the last four shifts on that cassette are 12-14%. But that's just acceptable, I think. And 14-speed would be the nail in the coffin. I guess it's possible climate change causes the collapse of global civilization and manufacturing technology before we get there, but otherwise it's basically a matter of time. You can do a crummy 1X road bike now. 12-speed will make it marginal-to-okay. Meaning a 1x12 can get the range of a 12-25 with a standard double, and still have acceptable spacing. And 12-speed is almost here. Which means 13 speed in, what? A decade, maybe?