Coast to Coast: gearing and brakes

[OakLeaf]

Just for reference, the Appalachian hills where the OP is from, there's no riding at all without a few 15% grades unless you hug the rivers (which are mostly very busy roads unless there's a MUP), and 20%+ isn't uncommon. Climbs are shorter than they are out west, but very steep. So it's more like high intensity intervals of three to ten minutes, repeated for eight hours at a time, than western steady-state climbing. Even in the shorter, somewhat less steep foothills where I'm from, swapping my 30x25 for a 30x27 made an enormous difference in how easily I could do those climbs all day long.