Hi everyone,
I need some advise…
I plan to cykle up the mount vounteux in September. It’s Wiki: “South from Bédoin: 1617 m over 21,8 km. This is the most famous and difficult ascent. The road to the summit has an average gradient of 7.43%. Until Saint-Estève, the climb is easy: 3.9% over 5,8 km, but the 16 remaining kilometres have an average gradient of 8.9%. “

I have two bikes and I don’t know which one to pick:
One is a mountain bike hard tail (Cube). The advantage is that I get very low gearing which means that I can use high cadence to scale the mountain. I have done a lot of climbing before with mountain bikes. Disadvantage: Weight and stiffness.

The other one is a bike I just bought for this task, namely a specialized s-works from 2009. Advantage: extreemly light and stiff. Disadvantage: the lowest gear is still comparably heavy compared with my mountain bike and I fear that I will wear out due to this fact. I asked the bike shop if I could change the gearing but he said that I could only add one cog at the back-not really worth it I gather.

I am currently not very fit and should obviuosly train more, but my end goal is to climb the mount vonteux without having to stop.
Which bike should I use?
How big difference is it to climb a large mountain with a mountain bike compared with a high end race bike?

Your advise much appreciated.

Cheers,
Daniel