Originally Posted by cyccommute

Your assumptions are wrong. A triple isn’t only for a “weaker rider” nor is it only for “beginners”. With more than 40 years of riding under my belt, I’m neither and every bike I own has a triple that gets used on a regular basis. Sometimes it’s used while touring because these kinds of roads hove into view

IMGP1741 by Stuart Black, on Flickr
Untitled by Stuart Black, on Flickr

the road in the first picture was a 10% grade and the second one is a 25% grade at 12,000 feet. In both situations, I was carrying all the gear I needed to camp and eat. The second picture was taken about 12 miles into a 40 mile day and was taken the day after covering 50 miles that was a mixture of pavement and dirt. The current mountain bike doubles would have meant that I would have had to coast over much of the distance on both days. I still spend a lot of time coasting but I can get up to a higher speed with a triple than I could with the mountain double.

If you don’t want to use a triple, don’t! But don’t tell people that if they use triples that they are weak or beginners. I could have done both trips on a double and just HTFU and/or just walk all the hills. Or I could use the tools available to me and have actually ridden the hills. I chose the latter...not because I’m weak or new but because I’m smart.