Originally Posted by mech986

Would suggest checking the rear axle dimensions for regular 120mm 5 speed, 126mm 6-7 speed or larger, then determine how many and what gear ratios you want to use. With a set of SOMA Rally cages, regular anodized or polished on the Nuovo Record or Super Record rear derailleur, you can run up to 34T rear cog which will give you a lot more range, especially if you can find your 39T front cog so as not to need a triple. That should get you to 8-10% grades. Also assumes an English hub thread.

I’ve standardized on Suntour 888 Perfect or Pro-Compe 5 speed touring freewheels for my 120mm bikes, 14-18-22-28-34 with 53/42 gearing, for me enough for most of my hill riding of which I’m slow and steady. There are similar 6 speed touring freewheels and Shimano makes similar too although their larger 32+ cogs have IMO garish lettering saying Megarange or something equally calling for attention.

Bob Freeman designed the Soma cages after the cages on the fragile Campagnolo Rally version, they really open up the range on NR and SR derailleurs. They won’t shift any better though. Use a good SRAM or similar 5-7 speed chain. He has a number of pic of bikes with triple fronts and wide range rears on his Flickr pages.

otherwise consider switching to a Suntour GT type slant parallelogram for better shifting.