Reading this thread makes me wish I was racing Savageman this year! Awesome beautiful race!
Great advice by everyone so far. As someone else mentioned over 2/3 of riders do make it up now so with proper gearing and spacing, and a bit of luck, there's a good chance you will succeed.
One thing that hasn't been mentioned is the descent to get to Westernport can be pretty cold. If the morning is cold you might want to dress warmly for the bike (arm warmers at a minimum?) so you don't freeze/lose a lot of energy before you even hit Westernport. The beginning of the descent isn't too bad but close to Westernport it gets pretty cold (right around where there is a sign saying there is Ice Cream at the finish; hope the signs are still out this year!). I found the block before the actual wall to be super steep and last year as I was riding that I thought, "there is no way I will make it up the wall! I am barely making it up this!" And indeed, I barely made it up. I probably should have put a compact on but didn't get around to doing it so suffered on the Wall. I had a standard front crank and a 27 tooth cassette. If I was doing it this year I would probably have both a compact crank
and a 32 tooth cassette! On the Wall I started off strong on the right but somehow ended up sitting and grinding it out across on the left side of the Wall...
Here's my race report from 2012. I need to update the blog with my race report from 2013; I had a much tougher year last year. I think 2012 I had beginner's luck.
https://amomandanathlete.wordpress.com/...an-post-race-report/ Good luck! Don't forget there's a nice little hill at 43 miles into the bike in addition to the other more popular climbs like Killer Miller.