Quote Originally Posted by airshifter View Post
...He was just someone I ran into on the trail, and really have no idea how many teeth the sprocket was. It seemed very large to me, but it's possible he had smaller high gears making it seem that way. I know it was substantially lower than my gearing. Similar to you I was using 2nd or 3rd most of the time and loosing traction as I powered the crank down while out of the saddle. He was spinning a high cadence in the low gear and staying the the saddle, so I think the weight transfer and consistent power allowed him to climb stuff that I would break loose on.

When we stopped I took a better look at his back tire, and I think mine really had better knobbies for the conditions. Maybe there was more of a trick to it, but he was making it look easy.
Did you notice if he had a lockout on the suspension? That helps on the uphills.