Good luck in your training and race. My wife had a Garmin Forerunner and the grade measurement was very poor and overstated the grade dramatically. We have the Garmin 705 and it is very good and the grade measurement seems accurate and is repeatable i.e. riding the same climbs all the time.
With respect to hill repeats and racing, here are a couple of unsolicited comments.
Hill repeats up 1000 to 1400 vertical foot climbs in 3.2 to 3.5 miles are very tough and difficult from which to recover. 4 repeats seems like too much to me.
When we were strength / power training last October - December, our coach had us do repeat climbs up similar hills. One up for time and one up in the big ring. Our coach had the Elite Cat 1/2 guys go up 3 times. We then as a team worked on speed / pace line drills after the hill repeats. He told us to expect our speed to diminish due to the effect of the hill work and scheduled us for more recovery type of work along with weight training.
My concern vis a vis the race is that you are going to be too tired and only good at going slowly up the hills but you can do it 4 times. That is not going to yield a great hill climb time. Our coach constantly reminds us that racing is about speed. You need speed up the mountain. You have to practice speed up the mountain to simulate race conditions.
My suggestion is to do less hill repeats but add in some VO2 max efforts on the hills on a different day. This is the 3 to 5 minute hard as you can go up the hill with a 5 minute recovery. You do 3 or 4 of these VO2 max intervals. What this will do in increase your power and speed up the hill and they are easier from which to recover. IMHO, you need more power. You have enough endurance and technique, I think.
This is where a coach is invaluable. I am purely guessing and post this to stimulate your thinking. This is not a "you should do this". I am clueless. And VO2 max efforts uphill can be very tough on your knees and back if your technique is not perfect i.e. climbing position, spin efficiency, and etc.
It would be interesting to see what Allegheny Jet has to say about this.
Edit: Or BikeWNC or JPPE. These guys ride a lot of mountains.
Last edited by Hermes; 06-11-09 at 12:28 PM.