I need lower gears 4 hills on my road bike

[Wasp]

Thank you for all the great responses and advise

I got the idea to change the gearing on the Dolce once I started riding my Mtn bike which has 11-36. With that gearing I no longer walk up hills and I very seldom redline. Plus I usually crest hills with 2-3 gears left. When riding the Dolce up any substantial hill I've always run out of gears by 1/3 to 1/2 way up the hill. My speed drops to the point where I have to ziz zag up the steeper portions of the hill, and I'm usually mashing the pedals trying to get up the hill. Mashing up hills leads to knee pain which is a topic I'll leave for a different thread.

After some reflection, I think I need to start working on my cardio as I realized that cycling is pretty much the only consistent exercise I do that increases HR. I do Zumba and use a treadmill but it's intermittent use as life and work tend to interfere with getting any consistency doing them. It probably would not be a bad idea to work on building more leg muscles, however I think it's more of a cardio issue that I'm experiencing.

I started thinking about a Surly LHT bike because of the gearing. I figured a touring bike would have much lower gearing than the average road bike. My Dolce fit wise is very good. The only issue I have with the Dolce is climbing with the current gearing which is 12-30. If I could get similar gearing as my mnt bike (11-36) on the Dolce somehow I think that would solve the problem. One I idea I had was...If I got the double compact changed out and replaced with a triple that would get me some lower gears, but I'll have to find out if doing that is actually possible.
Anyone have any simple ideas how I can add lower gears? Love to hear from you
Thanks again to all of you that responded with such awesome advise.

[ny biker]

Thank you for all the great responses and advise

I got the idea to change the gearing on the Dolce once I started riding my Mtn bike which has 11-36. With that gearing I no longer walk up hills and I very seldom redline. Plus I usually crest hills with 2-3 gears left. When riding the Dolce up any substantial hill I've always run out of gears by 1/3 to 1/2 way up the hill. My speed drops to the point where I have to ziz zag up the steeper portions of the hill, and I'm usually mashing the pedals trying to get up the hill. Mashing up hills leads to knee pain which is a topic I'll leave for a different thread.

After some reflection, I think I need to start working on my cardio as I realized that cycling is pretty much the only consistent exercise I do that increases HR. I do Zumba and use a treadmill but it's intermittent use as life and work tend to interfere with getting any consistency doing them. It probably would not be a bad idea to work on building more leg muscles, however I think it's more of a cardio issue that I'm experiencing.

I started thinking about a Surly LHT bike because of the gearing. I figured a touring bike would have much lower gearing than the average road bike. My Dolce fit wise is very good. The only issue I have with the Dolce is climbing with the current gearing which is 12-30. If I could get similar gearing as my mnt bike (11-36) on the Dolce somehow I think that would solve the problem. One I idea I had was...If I got the double compact changed out and replaced with a triple that would get me some lower gears, but I'll have to find out if doing that is actually possible.
Anyone have any simple ideas how I can add lower gears? Love to hear from you
Thanks again to all of you that responded with such awesome advise.

I'm far from an expert on gears, but I don't think a triple is necessary. When I compared my old road bike with a triple to my new one with a compact double using Sheldon Brown's gear calculator, the lowest gears were pretty much identical. So possibly a new cassette (and/or new chain rings) would address your problem.

FWIW, the cassette I have is 11-28 with 50/34 on the front.

[Blueberry]

For me, the triple isn't so much about range as having lots of gears in my sweet spot. Maybe I havent given a compact engh of a test, but my I couldn't find my happy place.

[Crankin]

I feel the same about my compacts, but when I recently started using the smaller ring of the compact more, I found more of the sweet spot. And my knees are happier.

[eofelis]

I have really low gears on both my road bikes (11-34, and 11-36), and it's great for climbing (we have a few hills here in Colorado) but they are both triple chainring bikes. You may be able to put a bigger cassette on the back of your compact crank bike, but it might depend on what your components are.

If you want a bike to ride the southern tier with how about something like this? It would be good for carrying small panniers with your clothes, etc. It has a triple in front and 11-32 in the back. For $600 is a good deal.
http://www.bikesdirect.com/products/windsor/tourist.htm

[Wasp]

I had to go to three different LBS.The first two shops tried talking me out of it and or telling me how difficult the change over would be and how it would mess with the engineering bla bla bla, how "difficult" getting the right parts would be. You get the drift of the conversations I had with the first two shops?. It was frustrating however I knew what I wanted and I also knew it could be done, so I went to LBS number 3. The third shop....wow...huge difference. Not only did the male employee listen to me he actually had a few ideas that turned out to be pretty useful. Plus set aside his current work and worked on my bike right then and there. Within an hr he had made all the adjustments and changes. I was so pleased I could of kissed him. I got a new cassette, derailleur, and a new chain. Since it's been pretty cold and icy this last week I have yet to get out for a ride and see how things work going up hill, I'll post when I do.

[luv2climb]

The Specialized Amira Sport I bought back in July came with a 50/34 compact double and a 12-28 cassette. I ended up doing the paperboy switchbacking (traversing) on the steeper 14%+ stuff, so I bought a 11-34 cassette, a Shimano Deore XT 9-speed MTB derailleur, and a SRAM 10-speed chain. The bike is 10-speed, but there are no current model Shimano 10-speed MTB derailleurs that will work with Shimano 10-speed road groupsets (this bike came with Shimano 105).

I weighed the 105 and Deore derailleurs and the Deore is only 1/2 ounce heavier than the 105. Not bad for a long-cage MTB derailleur!

my Specialized Amira with climbing gears by freighttraininguphill, on Flickr
my Specialized Amira climbing gears by freighttraininguphill, on Flickr

[ny biker]

I had to go to three different LBS.The first two shops tried talking me out of it and or telling me how difficult the change over would be and how it would mess with the engineering bla bla bla, how "difficult" getting the right parts would be. You get the drift of the conversations I had with the first two shops?. It was frustrating however I knew what I wanted and I also knew it could be done, so I went to LBS number 3. The third shop....wow...huge difference. Not only did the male employee listen to me he actually had a few ideas that turned out to be pretty useful. Plus set aside his current work and worked on my bike right then and there. Within an hr he had made all the adjustments and changes. I was so pleased I could of kissed him. I got a new cassette, derailleur, and a new chain. Since it's been pretty cold and icy this last week I have yet to get out for a ride and see how things work going up hill, I'll post when I do.

Third time's the charm! I hope the changes get you up those hills more easily.