Originally Posted by thomson
If two riders are going up the same hill using the same cadence at the same speed, they are using the identical gear ratio so the wattages would be identical. Whatever other gears are available do not apply to this question.
BZZZT. This is where you look at total weight. Gear ratio doesn't matter for power output. If you have a 200lb rider going up a hill at 10mph vs a 150lb rider on the same hill at 10mph, the 200lb rider is going to be putting out more power to go the same speed. His buddies dropped him because he was probably spinning in a lower gear using less wattage than they were, therefore he was going slower. The biggest thing about climbing hills is power to weight, and there are only 2 solutions, make more power that you can maintain, or lose the weight and keep the power you have. They did an example in Buycycling once where there was a 3 mile 6% constant grade, and at 250W power output, for every 5lbs of weight it was 30 seconds longer to climb the hill. So, if you're like me at 30ish lbs overweight, and your buddies aren't, you'll take an extra 3 minutes to climb that hill if you both climbed at 250w. The reason Lance never won the tour earlier in his career was because he was carrying 15-20lbs he didn't need to carry in upper body, he lost that during cancer treatment and he became one of the best climbers in the world. The engine was always there, it was just moving more weight than it needed to, and at that level, that's a huge difference.