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  • 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.

  • 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.

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