Originally Posted by
well biked
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-
I have a 24/34 low gear on my recumbent, and I used it for a (thankfully short) climb away from a river ferry while loaded touring. It was barely faster than walking.
This doesn't go very high, but this Portland ride would be good training for Mt. Washington:
http://www.opb.org/programs/ofg/segments/view/1728