So I'm still struggling with whole issue of climbing hills on my road bike compared to my mountain bike and have read all the gearing threads - thanks so much for the info btw... Loved the Sheldon Brown site where you punch in your info and it gives you lots of stuff back. Anyway..... I am wondering where cadence comes into the whole thing. I generally ride at a cadence of about 90rpm. It feels comfortable to me and comes naturally. When I am on the really hard hills - you know, the ones where people say, "don't worry about your speed, just drop into your granny gear and spin up" - I find I can't get much about 50 rpm even in my lowest gear. I'm struggling along at about 8-9 km/h and pushing my legs as hard as I can. If the hill is really long, my legs are aching so bad by the time I get up to the top, that it takes me a fair while to recover.

So the gearing question is - should I consider switching over to a rear cassette with a ring that would allow me to spin at 80-90 rpm up those hard hills? Using Sheldon's site, I see that the 11-34 would probably allow me to do that.

Any thoughts? Thanks in advance..

barb