Being ancient…need low gearing ! Got a giant anthem 26er triple which is a great bike, but a 29er would descend better..Trend is for a single front ring but no good 4 me.
Do any manufacturers make 29ers with a triple front ring ?

Read up on gear ratios like the Sheldon Brown gear calculator and you’ll see a double with the modern wide range cassettes is more than enough range overall. No need for a Triple on any bike with the cassettes on offer for MTB

Trek X-Caliber 7 has a triple. Might be a bit low-spec for you though. Plenty of choice if you want to build one yourself though

my Five 29 came with a triple. knocked it down to a double and a bash if you want the crankset 🙂

I use a triple on mine. Old 9spd 22-32-44 with an 11-36 on the back. Makes it easy/comfortable/possible to do steep climbs with bikepacking gear but still have sensible gears for daily use.

Double is good in theory, but for me the 32 middle on the front with that cassette is near perfect for general riding, with extra high/low available if required. I did the cacls and a double would leave me running in the wrong range of gears (too high/low) as they are usually 26/38 for 29er and would mean having to do front shifts more often, not a problem mechanically as my front shift works perfectly, but I’m happy to not need the added task when riding challenging trails.

It depends on what you want, budget, etc
This is currently 33% off

Still quite a few 29er frames that will take a front mech, though many ‘full builds’of those are tending to come with doubles. Budget? (Full bike or building up from a frame)

I bought an Anthem X 29er frame, fitted a complete 3×10 XT groupset, and it performed absolutely flawlessly.
Why not snap up a 2×10 Anthem in the sales and just convert it to 3×10 ??
(You could sell the un-used front mech and double chainset on the Forum, and the whole process shouldn’t end up too costly)
Although, selling that 26er for decent money might be another thing altogether 😉

I was doing some calculations the other week. Some new single ring set-ups are going to get you down to a 22 or 20 inch lowest gear so you are not that far away from an old triple’s lowest gear. The trouble is that I find I need something like a 17 to 18 inch lowest gear for long and steep Lakeland climbs otherwise my knees (which aren’t good anyway) really suffer. Even the 24/38 doubles with 11/36 out back aren’t quite enough for me on a 29er, so I either T Rex it (you do notice the awkward step down if you take out the 17T cog) or I put a 22 on instead of the 24. Doing the latter works a lot better with an SLX 38T outer than it does with an XT 38T outer, for some reason the change is smoother. And the 22/36 cranks they now do really do noticeable lack a reasonable top gear, where the 38T gets away with it. Then they do a 22/30/40 triple but the gain you make isn’t really worth it in my view, but I haven’t tried it so maybe you should ignore that opinion.

I have an old 3X9 XT mega set up on one of my 29ers with the new 12/36 9spd cassette shimano are doing out back. That works really well for everything from the commute to off road. I really do not understand why Shimano are not offering anything like this now……it makes so much sense in the real world to offer that bigger top and bottom gear range.

In actual use I have to say that I do like double set ups tho,,,,,,And in my (not very scientific) experience doubles do seem to offer about half as much chain life again as triples.

My Merida Big Nine 900 came with the triple and it’s still going strong. I don’t feel the urge of swapping to 2x or 1x – at least not when it’s my only “do it all” bike.