There's a hill back of my place called Norton Summit, and it's ridden by every rider in town who can get there. It's a rite of passage for cyclists, and there is even a website where you can post your times. I think the big boys (ie Tour riders) do it in about 12 minutes. I did it for the first time a couple of months ago, and it took me an hour and a half, with an average uphill speed of 6 km. It takes a lot of concentration not to fall over at that speed! I think I stopped for about 10 rests on the way up. The road curves around the hill, and has switchbacks and high cambered turns, so you can't really see ahead for more than 500 metres, but every time you make a turn the road is still climbing
I've been up seven times now, and last Sunday I did it in 44 minutes with an average speed of 10, and stopped 3 times (they were stoppettes really). Mind you, the firm young things were still whooshing past me and were around the next bend before I realised they were there!
The really good thing is that for every debit there's a credit - coming back down in 7 min with a max speed of 60km now there's yin to the yang!