man!! you guys are talking way above my head on all this. But, from what I can gather at this point; it should be safe to change the 'granny' ring down from 30T to 28T or 26T without worry about chain length priovided I don't get much past the center on the rear cluster. I bought this bike used (Felt F80) but am pretty sure it has the OEM chain-rings and rear cassette. That said; I should note that I am not likely to ever go past the middle of the rear cluster while on the granny ring up front. I've found in the first year of ownership and 1100 miles, that there is generally enough overlap of ratios to jump to the middle ring in front once I've reached the middle cog in the rear.

Now; I did have some problems with losing the chain to the inside last summer a few times while heading into a hill. I generally try to get onto the granny ring several seconds before starting uphill. I resolved that with some fine tuning of cable tension and deralleur stops. But if going to a smaller granny will exacerbate that problem, I probably need to know what "A Deda Dog Fang, N-Gear's Jump Stop or a Third Eye Chain Watcher" is to help with the dropping issue. I'm out to increase my total miles this year and want to make it as fun as possible without worrying about losing the chain every other ride and without struggling to get up hills because the gearing is a bit tall for my old legs.

thanks again for all the input; this is great!