Originally Posted by happy_cyclist

I recently bought a new 2022 Trek FX 3 fitness hybrid from my local bike shop and I'm having 2 concerns about its 1x drivetrain...

First, the chain ring (or maybe the chain itself while on the chain ring - I'm not sure) is making a little noise when I'm using the 2 or 3 lowest/biggest gears in the rear. It's not real loud but it does get louder the lower/bigger the gear (the lowest/biggest "granny" gear produces the most noise). I brought it in to the bike shop and they said there wasn't anything wrong with it and mentioned the greater angle the chain is at when using those gears. It's not loud enough right now that it terribly bothers me but I'm wondering if it will get worse as time goes on, as well as whether this setup is going to cause problems long term with any parts of the drivetrain.

Second, when I get to the top of a hill and have been in the lower/bigger gears to get there, I'm left having to upshift through all the rear gears to get to a high/small enough gear to get going. If it's an immediate descent, I have to pretty much shift all the way to the highest/smallest gear. But even if it's a plateau, I still have to shift through a number of gears. This obviously takes time and kills any momentum I may have had coming up the hill. I kind of stall out while upshifting, especially on the plateaus where I don't have gravity to start pulling me down a descent. I'm wondering if a 2x drivetrain would get me going quicker at the top of a hill due to being able to immediately upshift to the bigger chain ring. I realize I would probably still be in lower/bigger gears in the rear, so I might have to do some upshifting there. Does a 2x get you going quicker at the top of a hill than a 1x?

I'm somewhat of a beginner when it comes to gears and not very knowledgeable, so it's possible that these concerns may be due to some ignorance. And other than these concerns, I love the bike. I do have 30 days from date of purchase to return it to the bike shop, so I'm trying to figure out what to do. I chose the FX 3 over the FX 2 for a few reasons - one of them being the usage and maintenance simplicity of the 1x drivetrain (the FX 2 is a 2x). The other reasons being the better components and gears and the carbon fork. I would provide direct links to the 2 bikes but I'm new here and the registration email said that you can't include URLs in your first 10 posts (which is understandable).

I would greatly appreciate any thoughts or feedback people may have. Thank you.