I recently purchased my new bike and I noticed that the big ring only had a 50T. Then yesterday, as I was perusing through the newer bikes as I picked up some bottle cages I also noticed that most if not all of the road bikes with doubles had a 50T also.

Am I missing something here? My triple had a 52T and my vintage bike also had a 52T. Since the road bikes I looked at are used for racing then why the 50T big ring? Wouldn't that make you go slower?

BTW, the bikes I looked at including mine has 10 rear cogs and my triple is a 9 and my vintage is a 6.