Hybrids better for hills?

[Cataboo]

Did you tell him you never use the big chain ring on your trek fx? Because if you did, selling you a compact double doesn't make too much sense.



Your trek fx should have something like a 48/38/28 crank ring up front with an 11-32 cassette in the back.

Your cannondale is probably a 50/34 up front with an 12-26 in the back, from what I can tell.

So your smallest chain ring up front on the trek is a 28 tooth ring - the smallest one on the cannondale is a 34 tooth ring. YOu used to hang out on 38 and 28 tooth rings on the trek, and you've only got a 50 & a 34 tooth ring on the cannondale.

In the back, the opposite is true - the bigger the cog or the # of teeth, the easier it is to get up hills - your trek fx has a 32 tooth cog in the back. The largest cog your cannondale has is a 26 tooth ring. So you've lost a lot of gears both up front and in the back with the switch.



You can go to sheldon brown's gear calculator and actually work out the numbers, but that is waaaay more than a 2% change in gearing that he sold you. You're actually going to have a hard time matching the gearing you have on the trek fx on a standard road bike. But a road bike is a lot more effecient, so shouldn't need quite so much gears. And yeah, your legs should get stronger. You might want to look at a touring type style bike.

But definitely, go back and get a triple. Hopefully your bike shop will let you exchange. Whatever triple you get, you might want to see if they can swap an 11-28 or bigger cassette onto the back for you.