>>1455710>considers 10% steep>climbs them in 34/36lol and you call others leglets
The granny gear is for prolonged or loaded climbing without excessively wearing out a $200 cassette (driving 400W on an alloy gear is big oof m8) and $50 chain (chainline, duh) and going up 20% climbs in soft surfaces under the aforementioned conditions, it's a "rather have it than need it" thing when durability matters. A triple gives you a road-going gear on top of that for touring and commuting but for those cases you can live with a gravel-style compact like
>>1455724 if you don't go up off-road that much. 1x makes sense on a DH/Enduro bike and other things like an XCO build, a crit bike, or a commuter in a relatively flat area (and then singlespeed is even better), etc., but it sucks ass for when durability and adaptability are factors (imagine riding the 11t for two hours every day, yikes).
Also, most of the issues with multiple chainrings are the fault of indexed shifting, with friction up front you barely get any chainsuck or chainrub if you know what you're doing and you can even counter chain drops if you react on time. Having to fish for gears isn't really a thing unless you have 5-6 gears on the back, either, and that's why triples came to be originally (half-step + granny).
