Originally Posted by cwcaesar

Thanks to you all for the suggestions. In the end I have made a decision to get a different bike altogether. When looking at the cost of the changes to the current bike, I felt it best to instead get a new bike and sell the old one to my brother. I am getting the Specialized Secteur Apex Comp. This comes with the 50-34 Compact up front and the 11-32 in the rear, so it should be a significant improvement for maintaining a higher cadence over the 39-27 climbing gear. I was thinking about swapping components for the gears and swapping fork to raise the bars to where I want them, but in the end I just decided that this would be the better (cheaper) solution. Plus I will be properly fitted to my new ride. It will be the middle of the month before I take delivery, but I am pretty excited about it.

Again, thanks for all the help and suggestions.