When I rode from SF to LA, I spent quite a bit of time training with a road triple (52/39/30) and 12-27 cassette. As I started adding gear to the bike, I found that the road triple became more of a liability. With 15-20lbs of gear on the bike, I found that 50-70 mile days with 3000 feet of elevation gain weren't quite as fun as they had been with a lighter load. The setup was usable, but I ended up switching to a trekking crank (48/38/26) and found that it made riding quite a bit more enjoyable...