As a heavier cyclist, I bought a Ridgeback Panorama touring bike because I needed a strong steel frame and, for the hills, negative ratio gearing. (A 26 tooth granny ring on the front and a 32 tooth dinner plate on the back). To get me up the bigger hills, I've since stripped it of the racks and replaced the cassette with an even bigger 34 tooth one, and have removed the 700 x 32 tyres and replaced them with 28s. I now find I can just about keep up on club rides as well as being able to do longer distances in the hills ... so not actually a bad idea at all if you have similar reasons to mine. One thing I would say, though, is that you will often find that if you have a triple chain ring, the biggest ring is likely to be a 48 tooth one or similar ..... and most of your riding mates will have 50 tooth rings on their racing bikes. So straight away you will have to be pedalling 4% faster than the rest just to keep up! You really need to think through your motives before making the decision.
