Originally Posted by
msu2001la
A 25% climb at 250 watts is going to feel the exact same as a 16% grade at 250 watts. The gear doesn't matter.
I would argue the gear
can matter,
if your doesn't have the available gears to ride at the desired cadence. At the same power (e.g. 250W), grinding up a climb at 50-60rpm is going to be different from spinning up at 80-100rpm.
But assuming that's not true, then yeah 250w is 250w (at the same cadence) regardless of gradient.