Having started to tow my son in a trailer, for increasing distances and with a view to go longer and hillier I am spending some time considering acquiring some additional gears/gear inches. Bike is an oldish genesis vapour, specs as in link, 10 speed tiagra 4600, currently running a 12-30 rear cassette and 46-36 crankset and when towing trailer am only in bottom 6/7 gears.
Options considered so far would seem to be
33/34 tooth inner ring
Chancing a 32 or 34 tooth cassette (possibly with a roadlink?) and new chain
46-30 Sub compact crankset e.g. miche Graff duo or grx (which might need a new front mech?)
Which/which combination is likely to
1:work
2: make an appreciable difference
3: be relatively cost effective
A gear inch calculator seems to suggest about a 2-3 inch gain per option, which is about 1-2 gears? Should I just get stronger/buy a new bike/s, have I missed an obvious/cheap solution. 46-12 is plenty big enough for me when unloaded but wouldnt want to lose too much top speed while this currently my only bike.
On both bikes I've just gone to bigger cassettes because it's the cheapest, easier way to get lower gears. Subsequently went to gravel P2M on the gravel bike but that's a bit of a luxury and my missus has my old P2M with Compact cranks so that made her road bike nicer.
Having started to tow my son in a trailer, for increasing distances and with a view to go longer and hillier I am spending some time considering acquiring some additional gears/gear inches. Bike is an oldish genesis vapour, specs as in link, 10 speed tiagra 4600, currently running a 12-30 rear cassette and 46-36 crankset and when towing trailer am only in bottom 6/7 gears.
https://www.thebikelist.co.uk/genesis/vapour-2014
Options considered so far would seem to be
33/34 tooth inner ring
Chancing a 32 or 34 tooth cassette (possibly with a roadlink?) and new chain
46-30 Sub compact crankset e.g. miche Graff duo or grx (which might need a new front mech?)
Which/which combination is likely to
1:work
2: make an appreciable difference
3: be relatively cost effective
A gear inch calculator seems to suggest about a 2-3 inch gain per option, which is about 1-2 gears? Should I just get stronger/buy a new bike/s, have I missed an obvious/cheap solution. 46-12 is plenty big enough for me when unloaded but wouldnt want to lose too much top speed while this currently my only bike.