My (preowned) Tern Link came with a nice Litepro crankset but a 52t chainring. It rendered both ends of the gear range sub-optimal; I got stuck on hills and never used the smallest cassette sprockets.

anyway, long story short. I swapped in a 44t narrow wide chainring (AliExpress, maybe €9?) and with the 9-speed 11-32 cassette the gearing is now absolutely perfect.

I don’t run out of gears in an urban setting and can pretty much get up anything local to me.

the bike is rolling on 1.75” Schwalbe Marathon tyres and has a 406 wheelset.

Anyway, this is by far the best 1x9 combination I have found for my needs. I know we’re all different but I thought I would share my joy!