There's no right answer. Picking a gear for proper hills is a trade-off between something that makes it easier to climb (especially with a 10% hill with 300km in your legs) but doesn't rip your legs off on the descent, or make it horribly uncomfortable on the flat.
67" gives me a cruising cadence of about 90rpm at 30kph. With a 55" gear you'd need to do 110rpm to keep up that speed.
If it's any help then I walked 4 separate hills on the Elenith. The road out of Pont-Rhyd-Y-Groes is 17%, it's doable on a good day but not with 150km in the legs. The Devil's Staircase is 25%, I'd need a gear down near 30" to get up that (I failed to ride up it one year when I had a triple with a 30x29 bottom gear). So I pick something in the middle (67") and am prepared to walk if I encounter something very steep. Apathy has taken over, and I use exactly the same gear for flat rides, there's little point changing.
Gear down slightly (42x17 for 63" maybe) and try a hillier ride, you'll be surprised what you can climb on that gear, just remember to apply the HTFU spray, pace it and winch yourself up whilst trying not to vomit up your lungs.
There's no right answer. Picking a gear for proper hills is a trade-off between something that makes it easier to climb (especially with a 10% hill with 300km in your legs) but doesn't rip your legs off on the descent, or make it horribly uncomfortable on the flat.
67" gives me a cruising cadence of about 90rpm at 30kph. With a 55" gear you'd need to do 110rpm to keep up that speed.
If it's any help then I walked 4 separate hills on the Elenith. The road out of Pont-Rhyd-Y-Groes is 17%, it's doable on a good day but not with 150km in the legs. The Devil's Staircase is 25%, I'd need a gear down near 30" to get up that (I failed to ride up it one year when I had a triple with a 30x29 bottom gear). So I pick something in the middle (67") and am prepared to walk if I encounter something very steep. Apathy has taken over, and I use exactly the same gear for flat rides, there's little point changing.
Gear down slightly (42x17 for 63" maybe) and try a hillier ride, you'll be surprised what you can climb on that gear, just remember to apply the HTFU spray, pace it and winch yourself up whilst trying not to vomit up your lungs.