Originally Posted by
PoorInRichfield
I love my endurance bike. At 46 years of age, I'm just not willing to take the beating of a harsh race bike like I was able to when I was 20.
When you say, "significant grades", are you talking about mountains or hills? I live in the Midwest where there are no mountains. As such, buying a super-light "climbing bike" when most of my rides don't involve extreme climbing doesn't make sense.
If you're interested in an endurance bike that's a bit lighter, the
Canyon Endurance CF SL Disc is a little lighter than my 2020 Trek Domane, but not much. It's really hard to make a bike that has a lot of comfort features but still a feather-weight for climbing. If someone knows of a bike that does both well, let us know!
For "significant grades", I'm thinking about a local climb called Lamb's Knoll. The grade hits 18-19% in a few sections and it's just impossible to keep an adequate cadence without good gearing. The total elevation for the climb is about 1000 feet. 1000 feet is pretty typical around here for "low mountain" climbs.
I need gearing for a climb like this:
