Discussion: Fox Hill

Is that the road that's dirt, and then all of a sudden there's a wicked steep short section that's paved, presumably because dirt won't hold together at that angle? I think that was in the first section, because I wasn't cramping yet. I was mildly surprised that I was able to get up it with my gearing.

That's the hill. First time I rode up it I was on my red bike, pretty sure the lowest gear was 34 front and 32 back.

There are steeper roads out there in D2R2 land, and not paved....

But as you suggest, maybe some of them don't get plowed.

That may be the first place where I shifted all the way down to my 34:28.

Never been up that hill, and I doubt I could do it today without walking that steep stretch.

Until 2011, my lowest gear was 38-23, which was pretty standard for a road bike purchased around 2000 (52-38 in front, 11-23 in back). There were some climbs from my house I could only get up by standing, such as the climb up Chesterfield Rd, and then just barely. (I croaked the first time I did it on a ride with PG.)

I'm a lot older and slower now. I have 34-32 for my road bike and 34-34 for my gravel bike. And when I've done D2R2 rides with the latter, there were times I wished I had an even lower gear, as I had for the first couple of D2R2 rides that I did with mountain bike gearing.