antimonysarah

Well, I haven't had an 11-23 and a 11-25, but as a fellow athena/clyde I swapped my 11-28 on my rando bike to an 11-36 (required a new derailleur) and never looked back. When I need those gears, I need them, and 34x36 takes me down to the point where walking uphill becomes a better use of my time/energy. On brevets, I go with getting up to the top without toasting my legs, even if it's a little slower. On training rides I set different goals -- I don't swap my cassette back, though. Maybe I'm a little slower even then because I have the gears available; my best Strava time on one very steep hill on my training loop was from before the switchover. But that was the *only* time I'd made it up that hill without walking before the swap; now I make it up every time, so my average speed up it is better.

I'm not exactly sure what grades were involved; I tend to look at courses on ridewithgps, which clearly has a different calculation algorithm than Strava. But here's two hills I'd call short and steep myself -- the first is one I made it up with fresh legs on a training ride this past weekend; the other is one I walked some of halfway through a 400k brevet. I could have climbed at least a while longer on the training ride; on the brevet I am not sure if I could have made it up if I'd really tried; this was after several less steep climbs in baking heat and I was a bit cooked. They're both a little under 400 feet climbed in about a mile. I would handle stuff like your segment differently -- I'd likely stand and not downshift much even on a long ride, because those are tiny little bumps.

I will say that there is nothing wrong with walking on a brevet. Eat something as you stroll uphill. Unless you're really riding the time limits, you should be fine either way -- on that 400k I mentioned before, my rear shifter started failing with about 100k to go, and I did the last 60 miles with effectively a 15-19 cassette.

And if you've never done any longer climbs, I'd suggest finding one and seeing how you feel before doing one on a long ride. It's a different type of riding. (I hesitate to call New England climbs long, but they're long enough you have to be able to sustain a power level, not just spike up to it.)