Originally Posted by
Tourist in MSN
Fully agree, when I get home after a month touring on my Rohloff bike with a single 14 gear sequential shifter and start riding some of my derailleur bikes with triples again, it takes a bit of time to get used to the two derailleur shifting again.
Yep. Same with getting off a 1x mtb and going back to triples.
It is a question of compromise though. Wide range 1x is simpler and can cover most of the gear range but loses a little on the top end and the jumps are bigger.
In contrast, 2x or 3x allows a bit more top end but to do that uses a completely duplicated shifting system. It also allows closer gaps within the gear range but some/much of that is redundant gearing. I can run the upper cassette range in large, the lower range in small, and the whole range in mid chainring with my triple or the whole range with a 1x system.
What has changed is the cassette. Bitd the standard was 11 or 12 to 28 or 34, 36 was low low for climbing. That didnt allow much range with 1x. Depending on the chainring chosen you could climb or go fast but not both. Now a 22 chainring and 11-40 to 42 is common and that can be expanded up to 10-50. It's crazy how steep and fast that makes an pff road bike go.
Could a double or triple add more range? Sure. but at some point good enough is good enough and the rest can be seen as complexity. Consider that 1x by 11 has more gears and range than most 2x by 5 road touring bikes did in the early 80's.