Bill, I found my power figures were noticeably down with the lower weight as well. In fact, looking at when we did this climb on the chaingang bonus stage, both our average watts are down by almost exactly 40 watts. Part of this for me would have been pacing myself a bit more as I knew it was 3 times longer I had to keep going for, but I also noticed the power on the screen was showing lower than I would normally expect.And it wasn't a close thing either. I think I got an early lead for a few seconds after we passed the 0.1 mile marker but almost everyone just picked me off after that. I'm not sure why but it felt somehow slow to me compared to usual. I had low tyre pressure to deal with the slope but that shouldn't have caused a problem at the speeds we were going. My power reading seemed lower than expected which is a bit of a mystery, but it could easily just have been me not making enough power even though it felt like I was. Absolutely nothing I could have done to go any faster though. I'm wondering if I should put on a different tyre and join tonight's session and see if there's a difference.
I am surprised with your fitness level that you're not doing relatively better on the hills though so I do wonder if there is some kind of set-up problem for you that is affecting your hill climbing speed/power?