Originally Posted by
HillRider
I've heard of MTB cranks (42/32/22T chainrings) and a Xx32 or 34T cassette being used and they used the lowest gear they had. It's not just the incline, the wind can be ferocious too and that makes the hill far worse.
Wow! I've heard about this climb for years, but I guess I never realized just how tough it is. I've ridden a lot of fairly long, steep, paved hills with mountain bike cranks (NOTHING like Mt. Washington, obviously), and I'm a spinner not a masher, but I'm having a hard time imagining a paved hill that would require 22/34 unless you were doing heavily loaded touring. Thanks for posting that-