Going from a triple to a double – what don’t I know?

Why not try adjusting the limit screws and cable tension so your brifter can’t drop to the granny? If it works you can then decide whether to go full weight weenie and remove the small ring.

Shifter, derailleur, crankset should be all you need, but you should also redo the cables/housing while you’re at it. Getting the crank off will depend based on the manufacturer, but it shouldn’t involve special tools unless you also need/want to swap out the bottom bracket as well…and if you’re already pulling the crank off you might as well at least pull out your BB and re-grease everything.

For the Volpe, you’d probably want to stick with a 50/34…but if you move to a 53, search online and make sure you have the clearance for the bigger crank.

If you do decide to go 1x (which really is great), beware that the 1x rings are often offset inboard, so you won’t be able to fix as large a 1x ring as a regular ring. But 1x means new rear derailleur and new cassette. No need to replace your font shifter, though, unless a non functional shifter paddle offends you.

And probably no need to replace your crankset if going to 1x, since you don’t care about FD alignment with the double. Chain line might be a little too far outboard, but it likely won’t matter.

Yep – FD, 2x brifter and crankset. Most non-powermeter cranksets come with chainrings so you wouldn’t re-use those from your 50/39/30 (which probably use a 130/74 BCD anyway).

Some typical road/gravel/CX chainring combos are 53/39, 52/36, 50/34 and 46/36 (for cyclocross). I’d suggest a 34 as the small ring instead of a 39, for the same reasons as hozn mentioned. Though a 36 would be okay too with the wide range cassettes available these days.

You will probably need a tool to get the preload cap off the crankset. I would probably get one of these if you expect to service Shimano BB/cranksets often. It’s also the same one used with SRAM GXP, and quite a few other BBs. (You can also use it with Centerlock disc rotor lockrings with external notches.)
http://www.parktool.com/product/bottom-bracket-tool-bbt-9

When choosing a crankset just be aware that chainrings are not quite as interchangeable across manufacturers as they used to be so your choice may limit you to certain brands of chainrings in future. Shimano now use 4-bolts instead of 5 on their chainrings. SRAM still uses 5, although newer ones have one of the five recessed behind the driveside crank.

1x does not mean less range! (An 11-42 cassette with a 50t ring is more range than a 34/50 rings with 11-28 cassette.). It does mean bigger steps between some of the cogs, but when you consider that there are only ~14 usable gears in a typical double setup, doing 1×11 only misses a few cog sizes. In practice, I notice that it goes from 13 to 15 (missing 14), but it isn’t a problem.

For my commuter an 11-36 cassette with a 46t ring is a little more range than 11-28 cassette with 36/46 cx rings.

And 100rpm with a 46×11 is 33mph, so that gearing is still fast enough for the HP hot laps, though maybe not quits for the sprint point.

@hozn 154815 wrote:

1x does not mean less range! […] It does mean bigger steps between some of the cogs, but when you consider that there are only ~14 usable gears in a typical double setup, doing 1×11 only misses a few cog sizes. In practice, I notice that it goes from 13 to 15 (missing 14), but it isn’t a problem.

My 1×8 IGH doesn’t boast a big range, but it does cover commuting and errands nicely, including grocery runs. There are only a couple of short segments on my 7-mile commute where I feel a “gap” in the range, but that’s easily mitigated by either patience or enthusiasm.

@EasyRider 154903 wrote:

Hozn, could jrenaut get a cheap taste of 1×10 by just removing the big and small rings on the current crankset, and front der, and replace the middle ring with a 38t or 40t WolfTooth? Prob couldn’t go bigger that that without hitting the chainstay, but that’d still be a 100″ high gear and 40″ low.

When I set up 1x on my mountain bikes, a narrow wide chainring like the Wolftooth was important to keeping the chain on, but almost as important was a “clutch” style rear derailleur that resists chain slackening. This is important in mountain biking where your bike/drivetrain/chain is bouncing around a lot. I believe most, if not all, decent to higher end mountain bike rear derailleurs are “clutch” now.

I know diddly about road components, but are they as prominent there as well?