Maybe not "dump" but if you are talking about people who ride and buy new equipment above the Tiagra level front ders are almost a dead issue. 3x is basically non-existent. If you are talking about cheap OEM level stuff, fds are still in play. 1x took over MTBs a while ago and for good reason.

As an illustration, when you sort for 2x on complete bikes on Competitive Cyclist, you get one page of results. https://www.competitivecyclist.com/m...%3A2%5C+x&nf=1

whereas selecting for 1x gives you five. 3x does not exist.

You can say this is SRAM making decisions for the consumer but the market spoke a few years ago and I don't see any revolt in the MTB forums, Pinkbike etc..

I suspect the market for 2x11 (and 3x11 are you serious?) is so small that they've made a business calculation that they are fine with losing it completely. If a FD really fits a person's MTB needs then it would seem they could do just fine with 10 rear cogs if'n they wanted to use SRAM, but what do I know.

Talking MTBs(Tiagra a road group), just saying shimano is offering 2by and 3by groups all the way thru XTR, in 2018...I think 1by, even with giganto rear cogsets, to 42t, still is a detriment to some in some areas, is all. But shimano is giganto also, so can make these things and sell where sram doesn't offer it.

this. off-road riders and MTBer's especially love 1x11, and for good reason. go to a local MTB trailhead, try to count the number of FD's you see.

2x drivetrains are alive and well in the hardcore bikepacking community and some of those folks even run triples and BB7 cable disk brakes.:eek:

GX comes in 2x11

https://www.sram.com/sram/mountain/f...am-mtb-gx-2x11

Well, there you have it!

Cool! You learn something every day. I could see that coming in handy for a weirdo build at some point.

No. Not really, No market for front derailleurs on anything except for under 2k low end Full Sus mtbs, sub $1k hardtails or replacement pieces on retro bikes. Good riddance to front derailleurs on MTBs. I'll keep it on my road bike, but never again on an MTB.

Oddballs. :)

yep!

As an avid MTB'r and racer, I'd say the main problem with etap for mtb is the battery position on the rear derailleur - it can easily be knocked off or even just rattled off. Then you'd have to find it....Plus, etap doesn't feel like it could cope with the strains of mtb riding, shifting under max strain and its way to slow. Plus plus- nobody even rides Di2 that I've seen, and I've been to many high level races this year and in the past.

Yeah, no one I ride MTB with has Di2 either, and while I'm no racer, lots of guys I ride with pimp out their bikes. With 1x shifting being so accurate, reliable and (at least with Sram) smooth, there's no real need for electronic shifting. It is a cool concept, though.

Eagle eTap is nearly here?
 

I thought this was worthy of resurrecting this thread:

http://www.bikeradar.com/mtb/news/ar...le-etap-51790/

I heard Schurter was running prototypes. Regardless of how one feels about the need for these things, SRAM is really outpacing Shimano in the mtb world right now.