I have built a pompetamine up for commuting / touring and put a 53\44(?)\39 triple chain set on with a 11-32 block on the back.

For my commuting this set up seems fine, but have a niggly thought that I should change out for a 22\32\44 MTB triple up front.

I have the MTB triple in the shed and the road triple could be used to get my old fixed gear back on the road.

Maybe reason I should not do this?

That sounds like one extreme to the other. Isn’t a standard road triple these days 30/39/50? Pretty sure that’s what I have. 22-32 is virtually useless on the road, unless you live on the side of a mountain. If you plan to be mostly on the road, and even shared paths and stuff, then the MTB setup doesn’t make sense to me. You’d never need the lowest gears, and there’s be times you’d want bigger ones.

I’d prefer the mtb chain set. The top gear sound fine to me. It all depends on your fitness and cadence. I’m not that fit quite heavy and trends to spin

Are you sure about the cog sizes on that road triple? My Ultegra is 52, 39, 30. Team that up with a 32 or 34t cassette and it should take you anywhere.

An mtb chainset will be fine, esp if loaded, but may be a bit low for general riding. A 26/36/46 or 28/38/48 would probably be a better bet.
Spa and SJS are good for sq taper chainsets if you are looking to buy one.

My do it all cx/winter hack/tour bike has a xt trekking chainset and I think its perfect. 48/36/26 rings. The 26 dosn’t get touched on road without a load but I find it incredibly useful when fully loaded (front and rear racks). I took it through Bath, onto Wales and the Brecon beacons/ Black mountains and on to mid wales – loaded its much better to be able to sit up the hills and spin rather than get out of the saddle. If you have 120 miles to do in a day fully loaded it’s really important not to blow your swede on a climb early on so you just can’t have too low a gear available. At the same time a 48/12 top gear when unloaded is plenty enough for a winter hack.

Touring.
If you’re doing proper touring and carrying a lot of kit, and not just a change of clothes for a long weekend, then IME you can’t be too low geared.
We tour for 300 miles or so in 10 days to 2 weeks at a time and carry camping gear. Clothes in rear panniers, bar bag each and camping kit in a trailer. I reckon my outfit it 50kg plus.
I use a 26in MTB with full MTB gearing 22/32/44 and 11-34 9 speed cassette. That spins out at about 25mph but I spend FAR longer in first gear than in top.
It’s touring. It’s not a race. We coast the downhills and don’t strain on the uphills. It’s our holiday, it’s meant to be relaxing.
Mrs PP has a 700c bike with 22/32/44 and a 12-36 cassette.
I’d go for as many low gears as possible if I were you. 🙂

If you’re going to tour with heavy loads and climb steep hills, especially on rough “roads” you can’t really have “too low” a gear. Spinning at 4kmh in a 22 chainring and 34 sprocket combination is far preferable to getting off and pushing.

That said touring doesn’t always involve heavy loads/steep hills/rough roads (or at least all three at once).

44T big ring does seem a bit low, easy to spin out on that even on the flat, and again if you’re touring with heavy loads on good roads, you’ll want to build up some momentum on the downs to tackle the next rise.

I have 26/36/48T on my expedition tourer and would recommend that if carrying big loads. For lighter touring, on decent roads, your current setup sounds like it should be fine (if it is indeed a 50/39/30 triple – if your smallest ring is 39T then I’d get it swapped!). Are you actually finding the low gear is too high, or just feeling that you “should” change?

My Kona Sutra came with a 48/36/30t which was too high geared. I swapped the 30 for a 26 – it’s now perfect for fully loaded climbing.

MTB triple for us.

I hardly ever use the bottom gear, as we rarely carry camping gear these days.
But when the wind is in your face, the hills are steep, you’re cold, wet, tired and hungry, having those low gears is wonderful.

As PP said, you don’t really notice the lack of higher gears, but you’ll certainly know when you haven’t enough lower ones.