Always a topic for the Sportive rider. Faced with a series of steep hills during the course of a 100km or 100 miler the sensible sportive rider needs to get some "good" gears on the bike.
Yes, training is going to help too. But in the short term, and with limited time available you also need to get the right gears on.
Over geared:
On Monday (11th March) we heard that Team Sky Chris Froome lost 50 seconds (and the lead) when faced with the 27% climbs of stage 6 Tirreno-Adriatico - RCUK gallery He finished the stage complaining of being over geared - he simply didn't have a big enough gear to turn the pedals over on a steep hill.
Racing bikes:
A lot of bikes - even ones described as "Sportive" - get sold "over geared". Yes, they have compact chainsets (that's the front chain ring) or even a triple - but the rear wheel cassette runs out of gears at 25 teeth.
Not enough!
You may well need 27 or 28, and if you can find it 32 will be much more like it!
Italian events and European climbs