Why do I think triple? Well, I'm 43, and a bit of a clyde. 6' 235. I thought I might like a low gear for the occasional hill. Would love to bike in the Rocky Mountains some time. I definitely need to try the double. Thanks for the comment!![/QUOTE]

+1 on the triple. If you live in Wisconsin, Iowa or Florida, perhaps you don't need it. But from the Rockies to the West Coast they are nice to have. You can climb almost anything short of a retaining wall. The major roads in the west have reasonable grades but once you get off on to some of the rural roads that rarely see much traffic or speed limits above 45 you can run into some killer grades. If you don't use the small crank that much, so what, it's not that much extra weight and you can feel macho whenever you climb a hill without it (and avoid the embarassment of not having a low enough gear). But then I'm a relative newbie so what do I know.