My advice for you... harden up!!!

As a training ride Pete and I decided to take a fully loaded trip up Mt. Donna Buang. Using the Cycle Terror Rating guide this would best be described as: "High".

The rough route we took can be viewed here at bikely.com
Some Stats about Mt. Donna Buang:

• Starting Altitude: 170m | 558ft
• Finishing Altitude: 1,250m | 4,101ft
• Average Gradient: 6.4%
• Elevation Gain: 1,080m | 3,543ft
  

Going up the hill was pretty tough... but going down was an absolute blast.

One of the discoveries I made going up the mountain was that Pete has a lower gear ratio than me. Or in other words, his "Granny Gear" is more "Granny" than mine. So whilst he was able to peddle fast without much effort I was down in my lowest gear still having to push quite hard.

So I went and talked to my local bike store about the potential to put a "Granny-er" gear on my bike and after much discussion about possibilities the bike mechanic gave me his advice: "Instead of changing your gearing I would recommend your just 'Harden the F@#k up!'. He had ridden a similar route to what we are doing in NZ and said it isn't much more tougher then Donna Buang. Oh well, I guess we will find out.

Mind you it's still pretty humiliating being told to Harden Up by a bike store.