colaiacw:You obviously have a much higher power to weight ratio than me.
mikesbytes:You are not alone. When I first took up cycling, in the days of five speed screw-on clusters, 28 tooth cogs were for touring and recreational bikes and no self-respecting racer would use anything bigger than 13-15-17-19-21. Nowadays, even elite road men sometimes use 32 tooth cogs on extreme climbs. I guess the availability of 10 or 11 cog cassettes instead of 5 cog clusters and better knowledge of physiology has led to greater use of lower gears.
I can't prove it but I think one reason that I can now ride as fast as I could 40 years ago* is that I have never slogged along in big gears. Another reason (for me) is better knowledge of training and cheap heart rate monitors.
*
Which, I should point out, is not particularly fast and never was.