pain or more pain?...more pain please.

Ever so firmly I sit perched on the fence of indecisiveness, dramatically wavering from one side to the other. On one side we have gears, and for a moment that sounds like a great idea. That (in theory) allow swift and smooth ascents possible, expediting movement across flat sections, (not that there are very many flat sections in Costa Rica)...Foolishly I'm prematurely thinking about the final and cruel 25k of rail bed I guess and how I'd wish for a swift end at that point. Can't put the cart before the horse here Andy.
Gears will undoubtedly complicate matters while also making the race more bearable and some climbs possible where a single gear is useless at times. But do gears make me faster? is the real question. I switched over to a single gear a couple months ago and the simplicity actually made me faster on climbs but I've never been faced with a 10 or 20 mile hill climb before...Roger and I need to go to Mt Washington and see if the Auto road is passable via 32x20. Do they allow bikes on the auto road to train? prolly not...hmmm I wonder. Harvey would know that...
The simple question is can my knees take the abuse of four days and 30,000 ft of climbing on a single gear or should I sign up for a double knee replacement surgery now.
I certainly don't want the aggravation of skipping, crunching, unneeded stress and maintenance post race that gears will bring to the equation. Costa Rica mud = non fuctional gears. Hell, Tim Dougherty tore that race apart last year, and Dicky keeps coming back for another helping of abuse. I think I heard Topher is going south to Costa Rica again this November...and from what I've read he hasn't had a double knee replacement yet, now I wonder if he's riding a rigid fork again this time?. Doug's is going down with his SS. My friend and fellow Bostonian Tom is feeling the same way I am...or I was.
OK. Single speed it is. The fence has been removed.