Originally Posted by
Lawrence08648
You won't be able to do it.
Be prepared for the ride to be cancelled and be prepared for cold cold temperatures as you near the top
A bike shop owner does Mt. Washington every year. He can ride for 50 miles and average 25mph. He's light, strong, does spinning classes. When he rides Mt. W., he switches out his chainring to a 18 tooth and still he has problems. Tough tough climb.
It's only been cancelled due to weather once in the past 15 years. It can be run on either the 18th or 19th DOW. Is there a time limit? The vertical rise is only 4727'. A well-trained person of average talent can certainly climb at 2200' per hour for two hours or so. I figure about half as fast as a pro for the average well-trained duffer. Pros might run a VO2max of say 70, while average is more like 50. Most pros do it in an hour, so . . . And I wouldn't worry too much about the temperature. The final pitch is 22%. I would be sweating in a short-sleeved jersey in a snowstorm. Not a bad idea to have a vest and arm warmers along, though.
It's all about pacing. The small ring is a very good idea, and is how my CADD9 was set up. I think a Salsa 26T. It lacked a cassette, so I don't know what it had. Good information at
http://www.mwarbh.org/
Supposedly Mt. Ascutney in Windsor, VT is a good climb to test gears.