Originally Posted by banerjek

This is a great hill setup.

The deal with steep areas is that you tend to be in the bottom of your low gears or the top of your high ones. This means that midrange selectivity isn't so important -- and when it is, you can just swap in a narrower cassette because the extreme ends won't be so useful in such riding situations.

If 34x34 isn't enough to get you up those hills, a smaller ring combo up front (probably requiring a new crank) will probably be the ticket. Spinning out in high gears is really not an issue. Even with a 46 big ring, you don't spin out until 40mph -- at which point aero rather than your ability to spin the pedals is what's holding you back.