>>2036618
>You have NO clearance under your BB for trail riding
The limiting factor for that is the rear, not the front. Lowest you're getting on the rear is 10 (if you're limited to fairly priced components- 11), so on a gravel you're gotta want that 42 anyway. Add 40 grams of metal onto your cranks with a 22, and another whatever the shifter weighs (more but not much) and bam, you've doubled your range.
>unnecessary weight
You have unnecessary weight on your bike, with your multiple big chainwheel-sized sprockets on the rear. 2x only has 1 big chainwheel and 1 small chainwheel. These wide-range casettes are HEAVY as fuck, and they are rotating mass so they count for double.
>Maintenance or troubleshooting
>more parts that can fail
You set the front derailleur up once and it never fails. It's too simple to fail.
>shifting multiple gears down is slow and shitty
Think of 2x9 as having a 1x7 with another 1x7 strapped to it. You don't shift the front often, only when you run out of the 7 allotted gears for the chainring. If you anticipate a climb, you get off the load, calmly shift to 1-7 and get back on the load as you start climbing. When you go over the crest, you take a break on the descent while shifting to an appropriate gear. And if you just need that little bit more range but don't want to shift the front, release the limiters and use all of the rear gears, it's suboptimal but it won't hurt.
>under load
Oh baby, these new thin-sprocketed casettes shift like SHIT under load. They shift so poorly that Shammy developed an electronic groupset to try and offset that (and also get gorillions of money). And the chain, the poor chain, it weeps from all the angles it's asked to pull off, every minute of its existence it's tortured until its untimely death at 2k km.
A well-setup 9 shifts snappy and crisp, and its compact stature, a second chainring letting the chain straighten out mean more efficient pedalling and longer chain life.
>3x
3x is shit. Drop the middle ring.

Back | Go to board

Board:

/n/

Thread:

>front derailleur and a second chainring are soooo heavy! we must remove them in the name of efficiency>how are you going to climb now, you…

>front derailleur and a second chainring are soooo heavy! we must remove them in the name of efficiency
>how are you going to climb now, you…