Originally Posted by corrado33

This is a gross overstatement. Novice riders and people who are not in good shape will not make it up ANY of the mountain bike trails around here with a 1x setup. Period. All of the people who know better steer weaker riders away from 1x setups. Not everyone who enjoys mountain biking is in great shape. I regularly ride with a guy who is over 250lbs and is shorter than me. He STRUGGLES up the hills, but loves riding regardless. He rides a triple. Nearly 2/3rds of the people in the group of 20 I went out with yesterday had a triple, and although most of them were 20 somethings who were in relatively good shape, the still needed it.

Our trails are tough and steep. They require very low gears for the up and very high gears for the down. That's something that a 1x can't provide unless you're strong enough to push a higher gear on the uphill. That's probably only 5% of the people I know who mountain bike.