Found my bike recommendation reading posts here so thought I’d return and ask some advice.
I use my bike for commuting and light touring (tarmac and trail) but using the opportunity to upgrade when needed to be touring focused, its a ’14 verenti substance with compact 9 speed sora chainset and I wanted some lower gears for hills.

Currently its 50-34 and 11-32 with all parts looking a bit tired. Can I got for a straight swap for smaller chainrings and a slightly bigger cassette? Planned to stick with a double although looking at maybe changing shifters for bar end if they need to go.

Any suggestions or hints for getting a laden bike up the hills better?

I replaced a road chainset with an MTB double, 40/28 I think.
That helped a lot.

If the sora left hand shifter will work with a triple, go for a triple.

You’ll not get a standard Sora rear mech to work with a cassette bigger than 32 nicely. I ran a 105 with a 36 and it was rough.

Electric motor obviously.

My guess would be a double shifter wouldn’t work as a swap to a triple but no idea?

Crunched my bottom bracket recently, went for a hope stainless replacement and managed to buy a MTB 1 but that involves replacing the whole set.

Seems I might have to go that way. I presume I can’t stick a mtb crankset on and the rest will go smoothly?

I had the same gearing on my Norco. Switched the chainset to a mountain triple, removed the inner ring and fiddled with the front derailleur – it’s much nicer on the hills/off road. The chainline isn’t perfect but I don’t feel like it’s a problem.

9s MTB has the same cable pull, so you could change the cassette and the rear mech to MTB items no bother.

There are 2 versions of the Sora front shifter for double and triple, so you won’t get a triple on, but could fit an MTB double which should work to some extent (depending on whether its a band on or bolt on front mech) – you can’t go much smaller than 34 on a compact road chainset.

It probably won’t be much more to get an MTB chainset (possibly and BB) than to replace your rings, and from the amount my top gear gets used on my commuter, you’re not going to miss out much dropping to a 40 or so big ring – and the 28 with a 36 at the rear would get you up hills nicely.

Cool so plan is ~40-28 double 9 speed and in a perfect world I’ll get 1 that matches the mtb Hope BB that is currently sat being useless on my desk.
Thanks for the help all

EDIT: In fact 1 more question, are chainrings 9/10/11 speed specific ?

I believe 8,9 & 10sp chainrings are the same, not sure about 11sp.

Spa cycles do a td-2 super compact chain set. Which I’m guessing would have a similar Q factor to a road chain set so the pedal position and chain line would be improved over a Mtb chain set.

You would need a square taper bb how ever with one

Using a jtek shiftmate with road levers and mtb cassette. Working well so far and much better for a mix of on and off road.