Newbie + looking for gearing advice

Hi everybody,

Newbie from Belgium here and looking for some advice regarding retro builds.
I've been a mountain biker for the biggest part of my life but sold
all my gear some time ago due to lack of time (C'dale Taurine, Caffeine and F4).

I'm a bit of a Cannonade fan and still own 3 Hooligans.

After a Killer-v project 10 years ago, that didn't end well (cracked frame), I recently
bought another Killer-v frame. This one is in very good condition.

I'm new to this retro bike stuff and I'm looking for some advice regarding gearing.
Do I stick with the 3x7 and source some new old shifters or do I go to an 1x setup?
If I choose the latter, what will be my restrictions, using old school XTR wheels?
What derailleur to choose and how can I adapt my crankset to a decent 1x?

The bike will alto be used to pull a Thule bicycle carrier wit our 3-year old twin boys in it.

Any help and advice is appreciated.

Re:

How you spec a bike is entirely up to you - personal taste.

How big is your budget?

How much time do you have?

Are you creating art or something to ride?

Everything is your choice.

Original spec

Period correct

Retro- retro

Retro - modern

Whatever you like.

Older stuff is harder to find of high quality. Much may be available, but because it is heavily worn. Takes longer to get good stuff.

Newer stuff easier to obtain but more expensive. You can buy today.

Boutique is expensive but you get something more exclusive.

Probably best to make a plan

I can't remember when XTR first came in, but if your wheels date from the late 90s - all 1x speed options will be open to you one way or another as they all use standard shimano freehubs and spacing as will many of the modern chainsets and bottom brackets. There are some gotchas eg higher level modern SRAM uses a special freehub (as does the latest higher end Shimano now). Also avoid any modern stuff with boost in the name - it's designed for different hub spacing. There are a lot more standards bottom bracket wise than you will remember too. SRAM NX might not be a bad introduction to 1x if you wanted to go that route although ime 1x11 and 1x12 are a lot less fault tolerant than 9 speed.

As 1x becomes pretty the standard for all modern stuff, you may find some good second hand/new bargains in 2x & 3x. There was a lot of cheap but good 3x9 kit a few years back. 2x or 3x front derailleurs and front shifters are now very cheap.

It doesn’t have to be period correct for me, but I want the bike to look old school.
The plan is to use the bike regularly, so it will certainly not be built just to look at. But I like my bikes clean and that makes sourcing the right retro parts more difficult.

As far as the gearing is concerned. The last mountain bikes I drove were 3x9, so 1x and 2x are new to me. I like the clean 1x look, but I need sufficient gears to be able to pull the Thule child carrier. I’m pretty decided on what parts tu use, apart from the gearing.

My ex towed our twins (until they got too heavy) on a 1x10 set up (32t front, 11/36 cassette) it's a bit undulating round here, so i reckon with a 1x11 and 30x11/46 cassette, we'd have got an extra year our of it (they were over the weight limit for the trailer anyway)

Neighbour is now using the same trailer on an 1x11 e-bike, which appears to make it much easier (they can ride up the 1 in 3 dirt road leading from our place, to theirs, with both kids!)

Almost all 2x and 3x chainsets can be comfortably and easily changed to 1x.

And i'm almost positive that if you have an actual shimano XTR wheelset (rather than hubs and misc rims) they came in with the 960 groupset. So 100% a current shimano freehub (and compatible with everything including 11 speed)