Yeah, the 11-34 cassette on my FX is the suck. The spacing between the gears is very large. I went on my first long ride today with my new road bike which is 50/34 and 11-28 and it's not much different than the triple 52/42/30 12-25 I've been riding. I think that's one of the flaws of the FX series: cassettes with too widely spaced gears. I'm not sure how small a cassette you can use. I'm either going to sell my hybrid or replace the cassette.