Originally Posted by 1slowride

Not sure this in the right section but I assume us folks over fifty run into this more often. Got a modern road bike this summer, went on my second group ride. Quite a few hills, noticed everyone seemed to have two or three gears lower then my set up. Did an 8% 2 mile hill. Ended up grinding up at 8 mph by the top my knees were speaking up. Got home and did the math and my cadence was just shy of 52 rpm. Front chainrings are 53/39 rear cassette is 12-25. Looked on line for a different campy centaur cassette I see they have a 13-29 which would put me at 75 rpm. Sounded reasonable but this puts me right were I was on my old Nishiki until I scrounged a smaller small ring for it. I live in the Seattle area near the cascade foot hills so hills are part of game. Can you change the largest two or three cogs on the campy cassette? Should I change the smaller front ring gear? What works for the rest of you? Cranks are 170 and I am 5' 10" I weight 185