Originally Posted by
motorapido
The owner of this bike is one of those people who, despite multiple advanced degrees, refuses to listen to, learn and apply simple theories and practices for riding a bicycle with a triple chainring. The owner sometimes shifts the front, thinking she is shifting the back and then declares the whole design stupid, or selects big ring/big cog on this triple and gets angry about the bicycle grinding away during its extreme cross chaining torture. 1x10 will, probably, result in better gear selection choices and a better riding experience. Personally, I always took pleasure in understanding and using bicycle transmissions properly, and felt sad and guilty when I gave up down tube friction shifters. But that's me.
I can relate. My wife never got the hang of using a triple. Honestly, I don't understand it either. Not knowing how to shift on a bike is like driving a stick shift car, yet not knowing how to use 3rd and 4th gear. You could get by always skipping over 3rd and 4th gear, but the performance of the car will suffer.
On her Trek hybrid, she pretty much ignored the left shifter so in effect, she rode a 1 x 7. On her vintage Peugeot, we removed the big chainring, and turned it into a 1 X 9, and that is her favorite drivetrain. On her road bike, we mulled over a complete changeover to a SRAM 1 x 10, but in the end, we just removed the big ring, and changed out the 12- 25 cassette to an 11 - 32. So while it is technically a 2 X 8, she hardly touches the left shifter so it is, practically speaking, a 1 x 8.