On Wed, 11 Jan 2017 11:51:44 -0500, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 1/11/2017 11:19 AM, wrote:

And eight years ago before my carbon fiber fork failure dumped me on my head I was climbing on steel bikes up 18% grades with a 42-23. Mind you I wasn't fast but I still don't see much sense in that. If you're a racer, fine. But if you aren't trying to go faster than someone else is pure ego.

Sometimes it's not ego; it's training.

FWIW, my "regular" (non-granny) gears are lower than that, and most of
my bikes have triple cranks with "granny" chainrings besides, for use
when absolutely necessary.

But my philosophy has always been to stay out of the little granny ring
during regular riding, no matter how tough the hill. I've always
figured that builds up the quadriceps muscles. And stuff I've read
recently confirmed that the only way to build muscle strength is to
occasionally stress the muscles until they can barely pull one more time.

Anyway, that's what I did in normal riding. Then if I were doing a
super-long ride (over 100 miles), or doing an extended tour especially
with a camping load, I'd use the opposite strategy. I'd drop into as
low a gear as was reasonable at every opportunity. That way I didn't
burn up the reserve of strength I'd built up from the hard pushing.

The combination of those strategies seemed to work for me.

I find it rather revealing that Super Tom charges up big hills (18%)
with what is essentially a 2:1 gearing while the people who race up
My. Washington - average 12% with sections ranging from 18 - 22% -
recommend a 1:1 gearing.

One can only assume that he is much, much, stronger than the
professional hill climbers. (or has a far more vivid imagination)
--
cheers,

John B.