PA riders: Leighton to Moosic/Scranton, comments?

[fprintf]

On day 5 of a Health Awareness Tour (http://http://www.cigna.com/hat/index.html) next week, 15 of us, who will have already been riding for 4 days, are riding from Leighton to Moosic, PA. I mapped the ride out on mapmyride here: http://www.mapmyride.com/ride/united-states/pa/moosic/157811821

For those of you who ride in this area, how brutal are the climbs? I am from Connecticut so have no concept of the steepness or length of the climbing, we have just been told that there are a lot of hills because it is the Poconos and also part of the Appalachian trail.

Using the online elevation profiles it looks like some pretty tough riding, quite steep in places (one place has an indicated 18 - 22% grade according to my Garmin Training Center, which is as steep as Mt. Washington!). But one cannot always trust these online apps, so I ask here -- are the roads really really steep or just long and manageable? It looks like our first 10 miles is almost straight climbing out of Leighton.

[rsdmag]

The climbs in that area tend to be pretty steep, so bring some small gears. In general, you will either be going up or down in the entire region- not much flat in there- I imported the course into my GTC, and it looks pretty close to what you will experience. Good luck, and enjoy the scenery.

[fprintf]

Well, you were 100% correct that the climbs were pretty steep. I brought my 53/39 x 12/25 and I was killed on a number of the climbs. On day 3 in Easton, PA there was a climb that I had to walk up. It kept me awake all night that I had failed to get up the hill and everyone else made it (albeit in their granny gears) that the next morning when we rode it again I made it. Very very difficult cycling in PA... I would challenge anyone to ride this area and then find roads that are as steep elsewhere in the country... I think as you go further west the road builders got a bit smarter about the grades that could be handled with wagons... the worst was coming over a ridge from the Lehigh Gap up over a ridge into Lehighton. We had climbs of over a mile long at 12 - 18% grades. That hurt, and I did have to stop occasionally to catch my breath.

Beautiful part of the country, wonderful vistas but sucky road conditions - lots of potholes and chipseal roads.