Well, not the first time I've been up[ it but first in a while and maybe third time.  McCormick Hill Road.  Dips into a sweet low meadow, brook and farms.  Rural Oregon long ago.  Then it hits the hill.  Don't even think about sequencing your shifts.  Very quickly it will be so steep you won't want to.  Climbs from what? 200' above sea level to probably 1350'.  There are breaks.  No level, no downhill.  Maybe 2miles to the top.  Narrow pavement.  Actual pavement but texture like better chip seal.

The climb is beautiful wooded country, some fields, good shade over most of it.  Only in a few places can you see very far up the road, never as far as a half mile.

I tested out the good bike and its new Q-factor on it Sunday.  Bike passed nicely,  Rider made it to the top and then over and up a little more to Bald Peak State Park (located at the peak.  Turnaround is maybe 50' down.  I'd have to look but about 1600.

Got home with a bike that thought it was just a nice jaunt.  A hammered rider got off it.  And this with the new gearing - 50-38-24 X 13-28.  I've never been this low before.

Actually the FD of th ebike is still a work in progress.  A Shimano 9-speed FD, a longer Phil BB set further to the right and a 40 mil (ex shelf bracket) steel plate inside the outer cage makes ofr very quick, positive shifting but the chain rubs almost all the time (but the really low gears work perfect!)

In the works, a 34.9 - 31.8 reducer that is offset completely to the tight side.  I'll see if I can find a 9-speed braze-on and use a 34.9 adopter.   (The reducer is being made extra long to hide the paint scrapes of , oh say, 8 different FDs and who knows how many FD changes.)

Now I am going to go out and get humbled by that hill again.  But that 28 is going to see more use and sooner.  24 X 28.  23".  Never thought I was going to be going there!

Ben