Originally Posted by
SellOut
All - thanks for the great responses. I will be upgrading to either Chorus or C-Record - I believe they both support 26T. I think given all the feedback, it may not be a bad idea to try out a 13-26 or 12-25 8 Speed Cassette. I've got a bad knee and my lungs are usually in decent shape so its better for me to spin. There are many points that I had not considered. In particular, I did not consider that the ratio of my 16T will change when I change out my 42T front for a 39T - so the feedback was great.
You could also move to a triple with a tight cassette in back where the Racing Triple derailleurs would be stylistically correct for the tail end of the C-Record era.
30x21 is the same low gear as 39x27 or a hypothetical 42x29 and with 8 cogs allows for 13-14-15-16-17-18-19-21 so you get one set of gears which are smaller than 42x28 for the mountains but act as a 7-speed corncob for flat rides; although you'd need to run something other than a Campagnolo cassette since they quickly discontinued all but three combinations after introducing 9 cogs.
I did that when I moved beyond 52-42 with six speed free wheels and never regretted the move.