Lol. According to whom? East Hawley Road would be about par in comparison to the climbs I did. See below, image courtesy of northeastcycling.com... Red is East Hawley Road, green is Whitcomb Hill Road, the last climb I did that day. Whitcomb Hill Rd covers more vertical in a shorter distance, and is hence a harder climb. I'd say probably the North and South sides of Greylock, Whitcomb Hill Rd and Kingsley Hill Rd are all harder than East Hawley.



Here's the same with the East side of Petersburg Pass thrown in, which was probably the easiest of the five climbs I did that day...



Although these aren't perfectly accurate, there definitely was no downhill portion on Whitcomb Hill Rd, there was a short false peak, but that was it.