A 90km climb from Mexicos Pacific coast up towards Oaxaca city definitely rates as the hardest thing i've ever done on a bike. You can read about it by clicking on;
http://www.geocities.com/pathebikegu...ndsteeper.html
The scariest moment on one of my tours is an encounter with the Jordanian military last March in Jordan. Heres a copy of an email i sent home after the incident.
Like Windsor and Detroit, Aqaba is only a few km's away from Eilat, Isreal. You can see Eilat clearly from here when its not raining and ovecast. The only thing seperating the 2 cities is the border. There are only 3 places in all of Jordan you can cross into Isreal and one of them is right here outside Aqaba. Yesterday I cycled to the border crossing with Saudi Arabia - no problems. Today, when the rain finally stopped I decided to go for a ride and check out the Isreal border Crossing Point. I rode right up to the Crossing Point. There's a gate house with a metal bar blocking the road just like at a parking lot. A few meters away is barbed wire fence marking the border I would assume and the soldiers barracks. The valley is dry and there is just desert as far as you can see. Nothing interesting. No welcome to Isreal sign etc. So I turned around and started heading back to town. I hadn't gotten more than a km or two when I hear the loud wheels of truck approaching quickly from behind and honking its horn. Before I new it a military jeep with 6 soldiers and a large machine gun goes by me and forces me to stop. One of the soldiers jumps out and ask me why i was there. Why i had gone to the crossing point. They asked to see my passport but I didn't have it. It was at the hotel. So i gave him my wallet which had my drivers licence. Still suspicious they politely but firmly asked me to get in the back of the jeep - and raced back to their barracks where I met the commander of the border unit. He asked me a lot of questions using a soldier who new some english and could translate. It was hard to understand each other but eventually they were satisfied i was just a tourist sightseeing. It took a while but the fear finally started to subside when they offered me some tea. As is the custom here, strangers are always invited to share tea when they meet you for the first time. So before allowing me to leave they made some tea and we all had a few glasses. I rode away slowly - careful to not to look over at the Isreally side or to do anything that they might find suspicious.