Well, maybe some background…. I’m 62, 30-40lb overweight, cycling is one of the ways I hope to lose weight… currently I live in Taiwan, a country half the size of Ireland (so probably the size of a medium US state, with over 200 peaks of 3000m (10k feet)…. The Taiwanese don’t do Swiss style switchbacks that snake gently up mountains… here they often take the short way up… so 20% is not uncommon, ant I’ve found steeper… and this is the roads not the tracks…. My current bike for trips is a 2018 Giant FCR, it has 700x28 tire, a 48-36-26 crank and a 11/34 cassette. This gives me about 20.5 GI. This is fine on 80% of the roads, a struggle on 15% and I push the other 5%… ;o) so now I want to do some tracks as well an carry about 8kg of camping stuff for weekend trips…

Taiwan if a fantastic cycling country, but the cyclists here are 130 lb guys that all look like they are training for a Grand Tour race…. So getting low geared bikes here is very difficult, giant rough road is not sold here. So I’m already prepared to ship one in.

Anyway, your answers have helped me a lot… mostly confirming what I have researched… and pushes me to lose more weight… there in a niche there for a smart cycle company. Build a gravel bike with mountain bike gearing. I do believe you old need to be seriously fit to do hilly gravel with 25 GI… just my rant!!!