What I did on my Cannondale road bike to make it more hill friendly along with old guy friendly was to put a mountain triple on it minus the granny. In my case it was a 44,32 and in doing that the 32 is centered on the cassette better and the 44 is centered on the smaller cogs, keeping cross chaining to a minimum. You could go with whatever rings and cassette suit you best. In my case I have a 13-24 (7 sp) cassette. So my gear inches run from 35 to 89. You could improve on that quite a bit with a 9 or 10 speed cassette.
It’s not as pretty as the 52,42 that was on it but my knees are much happier.
Last edited by bud16415; 10-09-12 at 07:28 AM.