I have a Whyte 809 currently running its original 3×10 setup. I’m looking at going 2×10 but having never really fiddled around with the drivetrain much before could do with some advice.

I was thinking new slx shifters, double chainset and front derailleur would do it. I can pick up the bits for a little bit shy of £150. Is it worthwhile or am I hopelessly deluded?

I went from 3×9 to 2×9 because I pretty much never used the top couple of gears and was changing between middle and big too much (it annoyed me!)

All I did was get a bigger middle ring and some shorter chainring bolts (and wind in the FD limit screw to only use 2 rings) – you only need to change the shifters if you change chainset and FD to be 2×10 specific.

Swapping out the middle ring and fitting shorter bolts (or a bash in place of the outer) might not work quite as well as a dedicated 2×10 setup, but it should work well enough that you can see if the 2×10 ratios are what you want.

Can be worthwhile in that it’s reducing some complexity and maybe improving reliability. Being that 3x you sometimes need more fiddling to get the indexing right or keep it indexed for all three chainrings. 2x is just two front gears to get right. Though I found 2×10 may have bigger jumps between the two rings and shifting is a bit more clunky.

Possibly a weight saving, or maybe not. Depending on the 2x, you may be okay cross chaining (big ring to big ring), whereas it’s not advised with 3x.

If you converted your existing 3x crank you can mount a bash on the front and then two chainrings behind. If you wanted a bash.

If you were going 3×9 to 2×10 then you’ll probably get almost the same gears just with less front rings. 3×10 to 2×10 less so.

Have a play with a gear ratio calculator, like Sheldon’s classic one and see what gears you get out of each set up http://sheldonbrown.com/gears/