LarrySellerz

Do any of you rock a 3x on your road bike? I just fixed my road bike today and had forgotten that it has a tripple up front, but it came it big handy on my way home where I just wanted to chill climbing a steep hill. Why did these fall out of fashion? Are people just not slow enough for the granny gear or something?

tomato coupe

Yes, humans have evolved. They have gotten so fast that grannie gears are not needed.

LarrySellerz

Is it that cassettes have evolved so much? There are some stupidly large 1by cassettes

tomato coupe

No, humans have evolved, not cassettes.

Polaris OBark

Humans have devolved. Or at least I have. I got a bike in 1987 that had a 53/48 T double up front and some sort of corn-cob in the back where all the cogs were about 14 ± 2 T. Now I have a 52/42/30T crankset on the front, and an 11-30T cassette on the back. But it is Campy, and therefore beyond reproach.

Most touring bikes had (and many still have) triples with far smaller granny gears.

BTW, I try not to rock when I pedal. If you are doing that, it indicates the saddle is too high.

mstateglfr 

How do you forget the number of chainrings on your road bike?

LarrySellerz

I have a ton of bikes im a hoarder of them, have a shed at work. Haven't rode this one in like 4 months

Jeff Neese

Yes - they're called road triples. My Trek Elance 400T has a granny gear.

freeranger

Because it's cheaper to put less chainrings on a bike and still charge an inflated price for it. It tries to be justified as being simpler, tuning doesn't have to be as "perfect" as with a triplle, and generally works better. My ancient (98) mtn.bike and my road bike ('06) both have triples and both shift just fine and have never given me any trouble. My bikes are well maintained, and while I'm not an expert mechanic, I do OK. I am a senior, so maybe I just don't appreciate new "advances". My trouble free triples are staying on my bikes-and the triple gets full use on the road bike, while no so much on the mtn.bike.

Steve B.

With the move to 11 and 12 speed cassettes, these allowed a great deal of range of gearing. You can get the same range with a 2x or 1x as you do with a triple. Thus it was decided that 3x was no longer needed. Of course you don't get the same gearing as there are sometimes huge gaps between the cogs of those 11 and 12 spd. systems.

PeteHski

When you are trying to think up yet another obvious troll thread.

spelger

I had a triple until recently. and i never really used the granny until about 2 years ago. after renting a bike in FL for a week i decided i really liked the 2x up front and this past Jan i switched. much better, same dynamic range as before so i lost nothing.

as you get older you will learn to use that granny. ain't called a granny for nothing.

spelger

Larry's threads are genuinely some of the best on BF.

indyfabz

And what other types of bike(s) has/have he been “rocking” during the time he forgot his only road bike has a triple?

seypat

I have them on all of my bikes. The main advantage a triple has over a double with the same range is reduced amount of shifting to go from one end of the range to the other. If you compare the two on a gear calculator, you'll do more physical shifting with the double. Whether that is important or not is up to the individual. Some people don't like shifting the FD either.

seypat

I usually run 52/40-42/30 triples. There's one climbing ride every year(last weekend) that I change to 52/36/28. The 52 is used very little on that ride. Most of it is on the 36/28 double part of the chainrings.

LarrySellerz

I also think one advantage of a tripple is downshifting in the front under load. Its easier on the bike than downshifting in the back, so I like having a tripple even if it doesn't give me a larger effective range.

LarrySellerz

If you define road bike as a drop bar bike with narrow tires ive owned 7 (that I can remember) and this is the only one with a tripple.

indyfabz

What you owned is not relevant. What you own (one, according to your choice of phrasing) is. Get it now?

LarrySellerz

I have a bad memory man I guess if pressed I could have remembered that my road bike had a tripple but it took me by surprise for a second when fixing it. Like "ooh yeah this thing has a tripple, huh thats cute... whatever it will come in handy.." was pretty much my thought process. It seems like its dated technology based on the bikes I see around me but maybe they will come back into fashion

tomato coupe

Oh dear ...

Dean V

Good luck with trying to shift a triple from the middle ring to the granny under load.

bocobiking

6 road bikes, all with triples. I've had numerous road bikes since 1981 and all of them have had triples.

PeteHski

From a comedy point of view?

indyfabz