22%

Went looking for a continuous 22% gravel incline today and I think I found something close. But it's not 1 kilometre long more like 400 meters. Anyway I swapped over the cluster from an old 21-speed hybrid onto my bodgie built MTB and took out 2 links from the chain. This gave me a better climbing ratio on the granny gear. I would of liked lower but for zero cost it was OK.

Managed to climb about 150 meters along the track but ran out of legs and needed to sit up creating a  front wheel lift and loss of direction etc. I turned down the hill and rode over the rest of Towners Road to Mark's house and convinced him to give it a try on his better ratio MTB.

It took a bit of convincing but I won out and we returned together to the climb. On the way I got a flat and spent 10-15 mins trying to get the tyre off the rim. Finally gave up and just re-pumped the tyre and luckily it held!  Then on to the hill track. When we reached the bottom of the climb Mark started out and kept getting rear wheel spin on the first pinch. He restarted about 40 meters up and eventually managed to gain some traction by leaning way forward although still seated. As it turned out he pushed on toward the top and managed to get all the way even though he said he was buggered by the time he reached the top. I gave it another try, even with the soft rear tyre, still only managing to get about 125 meters before losing the legs etc.

If I am to ride the Minion falls climb I really need to be able to climb this shorter practice hill! We will see, what will be will be.