Commute all on MUPs or flat roads, depending on the route. Trails, no need to go 45 mph, really. You are only airborne for so long. I would choose a different bike for non-commuting rides where I would expect to ride at high speeds.

I don't know what deapee hates about the 50/39/30 crank but there is a lot to dislike about it. Going back to Dirk Feeken's calculator, the 50/39/30 leaves some holes that aren't a pleasant to shift as a 50/42/30 would be. The 50/42/30 is a perfect cross over gearing where crossing from the outer to middle ring is the same as gearing down on the cassette. I may have to do some chainring changing on my bikes.

Leave it in the big ring for stops. 50-29 is a plenty low gear to get started in. One of the big advantages of a compact is that you can cross-chain without issues. Especially if its only for a couple of revolutions. At an 80rpm cruise you're right in the middle of cassette which is a nice happy place to be.

I go triple because I simply love 52-42 in front. Felt perfect the first time I rode it 45 years ago and still does. The 42 is a really useful all around chainring. 88 inches down to 50 or so. City riding it does it all. All my bikes have 42s. (Well my fix gears may get fine tuned to 43 or 44. My old Mooney has a 38 as part of a 50-38-24 triple; basically the same and the 52-42-28 and 13t FW it replaced when I went 7-speed and 12t.)

I spent a year or two riding a sweet '80s race bike with a 53-39. Got tired of it and went to the triple. Much better!

Ben

At some point the OP and others are overthinking this a bit too much. If your lowest gear gets you up the hills comfortably, and highest gear gets you down, then what happens in between the extremes is not all that big a deal. I honestly have no idea what my shifting pattern is, because it's second nature. I do know that a 1x11 is simpler than a 2x or 3x system, but I don't put all that much thought into getting the bike in the perfect gear. It just kind of happens, and there are lots of techniques to overcome being a little off, including pushing harder, spinning faster, standing, etc.

I commute on hilly roads just a bit south of you in Alexandria. 35-39 mpg coasting would be quite routine for my 5:3-6 am ride in...

I'll spin out around 27 mph in my 1x11 rig, but my commute doesn't have long and steep enough hills for that to happen. Plus, that kind of speed on a MUP gets a bit out of control. Saw a lady changing her kid's diaper on the MUP yesterday. Felt like stopping to tell her she should consider doing it on the grass two feet over, but couldn't be bothered. I mean, if she doesn't care, why should I? Lots of really stupid people around here. Couple months ago I actually did stop to tell a guy it's illegal to fly a kite at the end of the runway where the planes are landing right over your head. His response was "Really?"

There is a huge stigma on triples but 50/39/30 is better than 50/34.

Most of the time the 50 to 39 shift requires no rear shifting, 50 to 34 almost always. In a fast group I have much less anxiety with 50/39/30 when a steep hill is looming.

I think it's funny that there are no triple hydraulic road levers. Gravel, commuters, and tourers are having to resort to gizmos to run absurdly large cassettes. 1x11 is ok for the dirt and for riding by one's self but sucks in a pack ride.

The triple will return. 1x11 will go away.

I'll put it on my calendar

Yup. This is my hack to run 39-30 with Shimano hydraulic levers on my main commuter.



A mountain double, something like a 40-28, would also be pretty good for gravel and commuting. The chainline isn't quite what I'd want and the top speed is limited, but I think it's better than 1x11.

No need. The 1x12 will take over soon enough, and then 1x14, skipping the unlucky number 13. Rohloff will then serve no useful purpose, other than relieving you of your money. Someone will need to solve the chainline issue or make a super narrow chain.

I noticed a couple of 12-speed SRAM cassettes on Universal Cycles the other day. How many chainrings do you need with a 10-50 (!!!) cassette in back?

Just add an 11 speed IGH and you'll be too busy fiddling with shifters to figure out the actual ratios.

Don't you know you're supposed to load the bike onto your car and drive to the MUP?

1x11 is almost perfect for commuting. A 42-46t front and wide range rear give you the main range for commuting and eliminate the need for a front derailleur. The triple is dead, with wide range cassette you can cover the same gear range as a triple with a double or single and have greatly simplified shifting patterns.

You illustrated the problem with triples. A 50-39 shift requires no rear shifting. That means it's only equivalent to 1 gear change in the rear. If I only need to make a small change, why would I shift the front when I can shift the rear easier. The wider chainring separation limits cross-chaining, meaning you have to shift the front more often.

The other argument for triples is that "I mostly use the 39t gear", in which case a 1x11 solution is simpler, lighter, and eventually cheaper.

On a 1x11 drivetrain, the main concern with a larger chainring is the chainline. The chainring needs to be aligned roughly in the center of the cassette, ideally lining up with the 5th cog with an 11s drivetrain, so slightly biased toward the smaller cogs. If the chainring is too large, it may touch the chainstay when in the correct position. On my bike, with a 34T up front, there is about 2mm clearance between the chainstay and the chainring. Chainstay design obviously varies between frames, so this may be a larger or smaller issue, depending on your frame.

Obviously, I still need the 53T ring -- that 53-10 gear will be critical for sprints! A 34-50 gear might be low enough for climbing cliff sides, but a 30-50 would be even better. So I'm sticking with triples.

I'm pretty sure I read that the design of the rear derailleur SRAM requires for that size cassette makes even a two ring setup impossible.

The good news is that this ought to solve the rear wheel dishing problem as those huge cogs will be able to ride above the spokes inside of the drive side hub flange. (Actually, Shimano is already doing that, aren't they?)

I dare you to try and match the range I can make on a triple with little effort. Shimano and other companies stock triples can almost be matched but the magic of a triple is that I don't have to go with the "stock" version. Going back to Dirk Freeken's gear calculator, it's easy to illustrate how limited a 1x11 system is. A 38 tooth front with an 10-42 rear cassette gives a similar range as the middle of a stock 50/39/30 with an 11-34 cassette. But if I change the 30 tooth inner to a 24 tooth inner, I increase the range of the triple significantly over the 1x11 system. I could increase the size of the ring on the 1x system to get the same high but the low suffers. I could decrease the size of the ring to get a similar low but the high suffers. Pick your poison.

Of course there isn't much to stop me from using the triple with the same 10-42 cassette to make an incredibly stupid (by most people's standards but not necessarily mine) drivetrain. I'll grant you that having a 130" top gear is a bit over the top. So let's drop change to a mountain bike crank...44/34/22. This gives a range of gearing from an almost usable 118" gear to a hill crawling 14" gear. This is, by the way, incredibly close in gearing to what I run on my touring bike...a 46/36/20 with an 11-36 rear cassette. The 1x is stuck in high gear

A 50/39 would actually be a better set up than a 50/34 in terms of the shift pattern. It has fewer holes.

Compact doubles have huge holes in the shifting pattern that require weird triple shifts or huge changes in cadence when you shift from one range to another. Comparing a 50/34 compact with an 11-36 to my setup, you can see how unsmooth the transitions are.

Someone who "mostly uses the 39t gear" should learn how their drivetrain works and how to get more out of it. Adventure Cycling did an article on drivetrains recently and they quoted the guy who has pushed for 1x systems at Sram as saying something along the lines of changing the ring on a 1x completely changes the character of the bike. He suggested using one ring for fast pavement tours and another, lower, one for gravel grinding. I happen to agree with him that changing the ring can have a very large impact on the character of the bike. I just happen to carry the rings on the bike and have this mechanism for switching between them without having to stop, get out my tools, remove the crank, fish the ring out of whatever bag it's in, change out the ring, install the crank and start riding again.

Simplicity is all well and good if it does something for you. If it just places limits on you, it's not good.

I'd like to see zero but I don't think it will work. When I try to calculate the ratio I get 0 or infinity

I've got to admit, as far as commuting goes I'm with you. I don't own any bikes with a triple any more, and I really don't miss it. I've got a low enough gear for the hills I face and a big enough gear for the speeds I want to go and beyond that I don't care all that much. But I'm not riding anywhere near the speeds some folks are reporting in this thread, certainly not when I'm commuting! Plus I'm often carrying a couple of panniers and a good portion of my ride takes place on a MUP.

Different strokes and all, but for me, commuting on my bike is more about doing a fairly leisurely ride, maybe running a few errands/some shopping en route and just clearing my head and putting a smile on my face. I honestly have no idea what my shifting patterns are!

The problem is those non-standard configurations greatly exceed Shimano spec's. A 9-speed Shimano Deore LG has a wrap capacity of 45t, which is basically maxed out by the 50/39/30+11-34 cassette. If you go to a 24t front, you're unable to use the smaller half of the cassette while in the granny gear. That's fine, but hardly a system suitable for the average rider. I personally rode a bike like that for a while, it was incredibly frustrating, because I was continually running out of gears while in the granny, and since it was a mountain biking, shifting the front wasn't an option due to load. I gave up, replaced the large ring with a bash guard and haven't looked back.

I agree than 1x systems are limited, for example, the local hills are too steep for me to handle with a 1x mountain bike. At the same time, the wide range cassettes have really eliminated the need for triples, which basically just add a gear in the middle.

If you are shifting challenged then 1x11 is better. But, if you are not shifting challenged, 1x11 is not better to ride than 3x with a tight rear cluster. 1x11 is quite a bit poorer, actually.

I said that the 50 to 39 shift is better than the 50 to 34 shift because it usually requires no rear shifting.

This is a really standard dude problem of believing one's personal preferences constitute a market desperately in need of being catered to. Triples will stick around for a while longer on hybrids and the like, but they're absolutely dead at the high end and that trend will inevitably continue downmarket.

I had to scroll up, yep, this is the commuting forum. You are referring to high end hybrids?

I just checked and the current XT & XTR 3x11 systems use the 11-40 cassette and 40-30-22 rings. This is pretty obviously targeted at 29ers which will wind up with a 16" bottom and 105" top gear. Could be moved up for smaller or smoother wheels and tires with a different crankset. You can do a lot with 47-link wrap, wow!

In my own reality of commuting, I could get by with a 35-70 range. I'd like 30-100. In my own MTB riding I pretty rarely get off the granny ring. I think in either case I could use a 1x system and be happy, but my ring would be smaller than what most people are suggesting, just because I'm not so fast a rider.

It was the lower end, Claris or Sora, and I hated a few things.

I was always sitting in the 39...Any time I was in the 50, the inner three gears on the rear were not usable (cross chaining).
It shifted oddly -- I adjusted it, I watched a video and readjusted it, I had the LBS adjust it, then I tinkered with it some more, and never found it smooth whatsoever.

I guess my main problems were just those...maybe there was something wrong with mine or maybe it was the lower end components, not sure...When I did a comparison and saw that I essentially had the exact same ratios available with a 50/34, I pretty much never looked back. I see a 50/34 as just essentially riding on the 50, and everything is usable from the 50, save from the 32 tooth gear in the back...then I have the 34 to climb. It just makes more sense, is way less messing around with the front shifter, and let's me focus on riding more.

I can totally see why some people like having a triple, although I guess something like a 54/39/30 would make more sense to me, personally (although I've never looked into if those exist). At least then there's a distinct advantage to having it.