halfspeed

If it seems too easy, pedal harder. A hill can be as hard as you want it to be regardless of gearing. This isn't a difficult concept.

Pick the gearing that gets you comfortably over your local terrain and leaves you with enough strength to finish the distances you ride. Getting wrapped up in ego about which combinations you are using is Picard level #41ier .

divide_by_0

gear down... I ride a TON of hills, and I run compact up front with 11/28 in the back (10 speed) except on my TT. I find I spend a fair amount of time in my shorest gears and RARELY use my tallest gear. I have a gear that will let me spin at 30 MPH... Its very rare I need something taller.

aramis

I don't know why people get caught up in this stuff. Use the gearing that's most appropriate. If you're racing or trying to get there the fastest, you use the gear that will let you do that.. whether it's a 34-32 or 53-11. Sometimes you want to spin 100 rpm on a climb, sometimes 70 works better.

I always think it's odd to see people struggling slowly up a hill with some ridiculous gear when there are so many options to have more appropriate ones available. If you're 10 minutes behind getting up the hill, no ones going to give you kudos for doing it in a hard gear.

divide_by_0

"dude, I pushed that hill at 53/9... you guys are *******!"

heh...

Campagnono

Sean Kelly, who is still lost in the hard-man ego and technology of 1985, has the audacity to say things on TV like "when climbing Hautacam the lads are gonna have a very low gear, 39 and 25, maybe even 27." I don't know if that's just ignorance or a purposeful perpetuation of the hard-man myth, but either way, he must certainly know the truth, and as such his constantly inaccurate gearing claims are remarkably disingenuous.

A huge number of the modern peloton rides compacts. Nibali has used a compact and 12-29 (Campy) on every mountain stage this year. France 2 has commented that most SRAM rides are using 30 or 32 and the same with Shimano riders.

Its 2014, they all have power meters now, a higher cadence on a smaller gear means more watts, any attempted refute of this just leaves you with Sean Kelly in perpetuating the hard-man falsehood. It would be CRAZY to go up Hautacam in 39 x 25, as it would burn more sugar and generate less watts than anyone else on the road.

If Sean Kelly would go up Hautacam today "it would be in a low gear, maybe 42 x 21 or even 42 x 23. Because I'm a man." Never trust a man who doesn't think there's an "h" but does think there's a "u" in the word thirty. "Trurty."

Source: I'm tired of Sean Kelly.

falconsusi

One person's hill is another person's mountain.

Really, what defines a mountain versus a hill?

rpenmanparker 

That is a bit extreme even for a flatland environment like Houston unless you (emphasis on YOU ) just want to do it. Considering wind and overpasses only, I still use about five gears. If you then consider the well accepted practice of overlap between the big and small ring to allow some similar gears on both, that makes what, about 7 or 8 useful combinations. Not 20 or 22 for sure, but it is still valuable to have the derailleur system with 2 X ?. Now would it make sense for us to be riding 13-28 cassettes with standard cranks that would allow us to have both 6 and 18 tooth cogs in the middle instead of 11-25s? Yeah I think so. Do I need to rush to change out my 3, 20 speed bikes to 22? Nah, hardly.

TMonk

Good question! I think that the answer to this is subjective; there aren't any hard metrics in a cycling context (I think?).

Personally, I think there needs to be an intermediate. For me, when riding at 4.25W/kg, I consider:

Under 10 min: Hill
Greater than or equal to 40 min: Mountain
10-40min: ???

banerjek

Quite the opposite. Everyone seems to think they need one tooth jumps -- presumably to adjust for minor variations in wind and slope. I understand that logic as I like tight cassettes myself and do most of my riding in a pretty narrow RPM range.

Most people seem to agree that spinning at 90 RPM is a good idea, but decent hills don't let you spin up at that rate even in 34/27 unless you put out pretty respectable power. That's hard to sustain if you're out for a long time.

banerjek

Big hill.

falconsusi

For me here where I live if it is in the valley it is a hill. If I gotta go up it to get to the plateau or over it to get to the next valley it is a mountain. I live in the Sequatchie Valley in Tennessee which is bordered on both sides by around 1000-1400 ft (agl not msl) mountain ridges around 60 miles long. Mostly flat (ish) on top making them plateaus. If it is bigger than a hill and smaller than a mountain I call it a foothill.

I think I'll consider it a mountain if the elevation gain is 1000 feet (or close) from above ground level.