Originally Posted by
chasm54
I don't really follow the logic here as far as strength is concerned. The whole point of having the small ring is so you can run a tight-ratio cassette without being particularly strong.
There's absolutely no appreciable difference between the 30-25 combo you'd get with a road triple and an 11-25 racing cassette and the 34-28 combo you'd get with a compact double and a wide-range cassette. Both require more strength to pedal than the 30-28 combo you'd get with a road triple and a wide range cassette. Switching to a triple in order to get tighter gear spacing is a waste of money, in my opinion. As stated before: I would either stick with a compact double, or buy a triple and be prepared to swap on the large and small chainrings to get significantly lower gearing...