I've been riding my Trek 7.3 hybrid for about two years. I did about 750 miles this summer generally averaging 30-50 mile rides at about 13-14mph. The bike has 24 gears and I've come a long way learning how to make the most of my gears when climbing hills. I never really use the largest ring in the front (my cruising ring), so I'm really using 16 gears. I've learned through trial and error how not to pop the chain by downloading BEFORE I get to the hill.

Fast forward to this past weekend...my LBS keeps suggesting that I'm really ready for a road bike if I'm regularly riding 50 miles at a clip and would like to speed up my pace a little. So, this weekend I spent about two hours riding road bikes. I chose a 2010 Cannondale Synapse Carbon road bike. That's about as technical as I get.

It has a compact cassette in front - so there's only two rings instead of three. I figured that wouldn't be an issue since I'm used to only using two rings and the owner at the shop said there's only a 2% difference. To get to the meat of my question - I think my hybrid was much more of a billy goat climber than the new road bike. When I drop down to the lowest gear - the one where I can spin the fastest - there's no doubt my spin was easier on the hybrid. The hills - rolling, not mountainous - I rode this weekend were not as easy as they should have been for me. I'm wondering if I'm going to have a problem when I get to the serious hills.

I think the smallest ring on the front of the road bike is larger than the smallest ring on the front of the hybrid - do you think that would be the issue and I'll just need to compensate with stronger legs? I'm thinking I'll go for clipless in the Spring and that will make hills easier, but I want to get a really good feel for the bike before I do that.