VAM might be ok, but my area is really flat, and I have to drive 45 mins to find hills with a decent grade and with any length. There is one good hill a couple miles from my house, but it's only about 80 vertical feet, although it has a decent grade at the steepest section. Hill repeats anyone?!

I'm a big guy, 6' 208lbs right now, although I want to be down to 195 or so by the start of road season. I absolutely SUCK at climbing as you can imagine, as my sustained power to weight ratio is currently rather low compared to some more serious racers and cyclists that I know. With that said, I can set off a watt bomb and push a large gear, so my accelerations are very strong when I jump and my sprint has improved significantly. I can get up over 35 in a solo effort (10-15 seconds or so) on flat terrain, and even more with a lead out. I can also spin up to over 150 rpm on the trainer and have seen wheelspeeds over 40. How this will translate to the road come spring I don't know, but I did get in a ride with one of my buddies last weekend and dropped him like a rock.

My goal is to race a couple local cat 5 crits this summer, and it is a fast flat 4 corner square course on pretty good clean city streets. The cat 5 is 35 mins + laps I think. I'm thinking my bike handling skills, ability to handle the repeated accelerations, and overall finishing sprint will be more important than my climbing skills or one hour threshold.