Quote Originally Posted by bluebug32 View Post
Bleecker,

Part of the reasoning behind this gear switch was that I tried to bike up Mountain Rest Road to Mohonk in New Paltz last weekend. Holy crap was this a challenge. I nearly fell over midway up just after hitting my max HR and seeing my Garmin flash a 24% grade.
I don't blame you! That's just evil. I'm not even on a mountain here but hills are pretty much surrounding me in every direction.
My massive gear range enables me to tackle all the hills I encounter...and many are hard even in my lowest gear still. I get plenty of workout. But if I had typical road bike gearing I would be either avoiding many of the hilly rides or just staying home altogether.
My major gears get me tackling everything that comes my way.
Both my road bikes are 9 speed, by the way. I like 'em like that and in fact had my new road bike purposely built up as a 9 speed a few months ago...with my favorite mountain gearing setup of course.