I know I must be the thousand person to ask this sort of thing.
Late last year (after many years away from the sport) I treated myself to a Whyte 901.
Nothing wrong at with the bike.
But have found that I never use the small front chain ring. And was thinking of removing it and all the junk that goes with it (save a little weight and gives the mud one less place to cling to)
Is there and pit falls to this or anything I need to change?

If you are not using the granny ring and it is a S1000 chainset then just replace the big ring with a 36t NW and take off the rest of that crap.