You could lower your gearing if you went with a 26" wheel. I recently built up a bike as a commuter and used a frame with the clearance for either 700c or 26" wheels. The key being disc brakes. A typical compact crankset combined with wider range gearing (11-28 for example) and 1.25" tires on 26"rims would give you a 111" high and 30" low. Just throwing some ideas out there.
Last edited by cale; 10-08-12 at 10:19 PM.