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@MikeTinsley
At around 19st (not all fat, thankfully!), hills are not my friend and I'm living in the middle of the Surrey Hills, but for one reason or another I've standardised on 53/39 chainrings with 11-28 cassettes (Shimano) and I can get up White Down and Leith hill while seated... One big advantage I find over the compact 50/34 I used to have on my bike is that I do most of my rides spinning at a cadence of 90-100 using the 39 ring without needing to use the 11 or 12 sprockets, thus avoiding the chainline issues. I only ever used the 34 ring going up hills before as it was a bit too spinny on anything else.
Hope that is of some help in your decisions....