Originally Posted by
redlude97
My experience with mtbers and other gravel riders is that a very small fraction will want to ride that type of terrain whatever their gearing. You still need to be able to put out a lot of power to able to get up something like that.
All the hard gravel rides have like 5-10% of the participation numbers compared to the easier less hilly rides, and we have lots of mounatains here in the PNW.
That particular hill is an extreme case, but...
This is partly a chicken-and-egg issue. By and large, you
don't need to be able to put out a lot of power to get up steep hills, if you've got appropriate gearing. I've seen very few people fail to have a blast on foothills gravel rides out here, but it's hard to get people to do it if their bike isn't suitable for the job.
This is true even for the lower paved hills in the populated areas. There's zero technicality to paved climbing; if someone says that a paved hill is "hard to get up", that's a problem with their bike.