Triple conversion.

[GrahamG]

Buy another bike. Seriously. A Carerra Subway would probably work quite nicely and it now has 21 speed MTB gears - not sure what but probably 24 on the front small chainring

Seems a bit extreme for the sake of a simple crankset and front mech swap - probably less than £50 after ebaying the og parts.

 

[GrasB]

+1... & it may well just need a new crankset. I'm running a 29t inner chainring on a mech that's spec'ed as 34t minimum!

 

[Cubist]

Buy another bike. Seriously. A Carerra Subway would probably work quite nicely and it now has 21 speed MTB gears - not sure what but probably 24 on the front small chainring

Yeah right!

 

[Cubist]

If you seriously want to load the bike up a bit for touring I'd just change the crankset for a MTB triple (26/36/48 or something similar is probably a sensible compromise rather than the more common 22/32/44) - your rear mech is likely to be compatible to accommodate that 11-32 cassette so it's just front mtb mech.

Don't worry about sticking with truvativ or keeping current bottom bracket, you can flog those together on ebay for decent money to avoid spending extra on sticking to the one brand.

I'm thinking these two things plus some basic (borrowed?) tools, or cash to LBS will sort you out:

Crankset (includes BB):
http://www.parker-international.co....ogle&utm_medium=froogle&utm_campaign=pid13893

Mech:
http://www.parker-international.co.uk/13902/Shimano-Deore-M590-Top-Swing-Dual-Pull-Front-Mech.html

Just to check - is your front gear shifter compatible with a triple?

Certainly an option. The front shifter is a triple, the rear mech is a SRAM X9 so plenty long enough.

Hadn't occurrd to me to flog the compact chainset and BB, it would definitely lower the costs.

At the mo I've decided to go for a 34t ring and see whether that gives me enough,and there are plenty of 11-34 Cassettes out there in auctionland. I reckon 1:1 and a decent pair of legs should do the trick for the time being!