I have come to the conclusion that after changing my crankset from a 44/32/22 to a 48/36/26 and leaving the 11-32 cassette in place that the gear spacing is too far apart to allow for efficient riding.... I'm either spinning too fast or grinding too slow. Thus, this has negatively impacted my avg. speed on routes that I would normally travel ~1mph faster.

The solution is to couple the bigger crankset w/ a 12-26 cassette to eliminate the huge gaps in gearing. This should bring about a more efficient ride and greater speed.