Chainring change

Couple of things come to mind some already said before.

What type of rider are you? Sounds like you have a "big" engine and can hold high speeds on the flat for long distances. Therefore you may not be able to climb that well anyway regardless of the gearing. Think Boonen, Tony Martin and Cancellara.

No it will not be possible, chances are you have 130mm bolt pattern, 34 tooth have a 110mm bolt pattern. Even if you could, the limit for the mechs would be exceeded and the chain would either be too long for the 34 or too short for the 53.

What are you using at the back? It maybe possible to change the cassette to give you a lower gear without compromising the speed element. But it all depends on what gradiants you climb as you could be seeking something that doesn't exist, gears that get you up 20% and allow you to do 50mph. This goes back to what type of rider are you?

If you can afford it, trying a 52/36 with 12-30 cassette, as suggested, might be the best compromise.

Aww, you're another one, desperate to be offended on someone else's behalf.

My point, which in your urge to froth you have missed, is that you can learn to ride on smaller gears. It may not be a direct answer to the original question, but it does follow the thread which has moved on to discuss the idea that one can ride quickly without big gears.

Jesus....

In the old days, if you rode with a club there were various rules/guidelines about. One of them was 'never use the big ring before March'; which to todays youth might sound a bit silly, but it encouraged people to learn how to ride at a high cadence.

You read the occasional stupid who will insist that he needs a bigger gear because he just can't go fast enough with 52-12 or 50-11 and the correct response is to laugh. One of my team mates snapped his front derailleur cable in a race and still got in the top five with 39-12.

TL:DR; learn to ride.

Yeah, def. work oh smooth spinning. A 50x11 is way faster at 100 rpm than most folks can sustain-get a cadence meter and actually measure your cadence. If you actually can sustain 110 rpm in a 50x11 you should go pro and let your mechanic do the job. Otherwise, 1) the ramps on the 53 are optimized for the inner ring it came with, so there will be no assist from the 34T radius to the 39 tooth radius (poorer shifting bottom line); also if you use the stupid 34 front x any of the rear 5 gears the chain will grind between the rear deraileur pulleys as this combo will almost certainly greatly exceed the official capacity to carry chain-but like I said, the noise is just a reminder to not use the (silly anyway) 34x rear low tooth count gears.

Try reading this thread:

http://road.cc/content/forum/130788-who-uses-mid-compact-5236

could be your solution. You can make up for big ring with a bit more cadence. I've not looked back.

Depends what you call fast for the 53t. If you mean north of 26mph consistently on the flat then a comapct 50/34 chainset will do you perfectly. 50x11 is 32mph @90rpm