I gained some weight a couple of years ago and, although I have now lost most of it, I still have
another 10 pounds to go. I live on a hill so the first thing I have to do on many rides is go
straight up. In late June Alex Wetmore <alex@phred.org> gave me the impression on his post to the
list to someone else that it was safe to replace my small chainring (26) with a smaller one (24). So
my chainrings would go from 26-42-52 to 24-42-52. This would have provided a lower gear of 19.7 vs
21.4 (an 8 percent reduction of gear inches). (I use Sheldon Brown's Gear Calculator
http://www.sheldonbrown.com/gears/) I was not sure that 8 percent was worth the trouble. In the
meantime, I was not getting any lighter and the hills were not getting any flatter. Since I am
compulsive, I decided not only to change my chainring but to also change my XTR front cassette from
a 11-32 to a 11-34. Even though I had less than 1,000 miles on it, I figured I would get something
for it on Ebay. See http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...tem=3619900426
. This lowered my lowest gear from 21.4 to 18.6 (a 13 percent reduction of gear inches).

On my first test this week, I had to ride without my usual 10 minute indoor stationary bike warm up
and I was very pleased going up that first hill and very grateful to Mr. Wetmore. The bike shifted
as well as it had previously as it did yesterday on a longer 72 mile ride. Yesterday, a racer
dressed in US postal garb, rode with me up a 1.5 mile steep climb. He was going slow for him, I was
trying to keep up as we were having a conversation. Meanwhile my heart rate monitor eventually hit
my red line and stayed there for too long. At this point, which was near the end of the climb, he
mentioned that we were getting to the steepest part, and I told him I was dropping down two gears to
my lowest. He said goodbye, and I limped up the hill and home (I was close by this point, thank
goodness.) Thank you again Alex!