Fifty Plus (50+) - New steepest hill ridden!!

I completed a "training ride" for Mt Mitchell today. It was 86+ miles with 8330 ft of climbing. We just beat the rain and storms that are coming in but the weather was perfect for us. Arm warmers were the order of the day-slide them down and unzip the jersey on climbs and pull the arm warmers and zipper back up on descents.

Immediately before the featured 6 mile climb of the ride, they took us on a 1-2 mile road that had one heck of a hill. I flipped the Garmin over to the % Grade display and it was showing 23%.....24%.....then 28%. That section wasn't all that long-maybe 300 yards-but I had to come up out of the saddle in my 34/27 and stomp on my pedals to get up that thing. My cadence would come to a brief stop as I was rotating my weight from one foot to the other other. You didn't dare stop moving forward or over you'd go.... or even worse...backwards!!!!! I later found out the locals that knew the route took a shorcut around that darn thing.

What were they thinking tossing in that section before the 6 mile climb!!!

There was also a 7 mile climb, a 10 mile climb and several 1-3 mile climbs with 10-15% grades for stretches in them. Good 'ol Blue Ridge Mountains.

(Edit: not all the ride was climbing! I was cruising down one 3 mile descent at 46 mph and a cyclist came by me like a rocket towing two others behind him. He said he hit about 53 mph...........)

Good free food afterwards as well. No pie, but plenty of other goodies. It looks like I burned about 6600 calories today.

What are some hills you folks have done?


Edit 2: Here is the profile from Training Center-the top of Caesars Head is the big spike in the middle. It was an out and back so the ride profile coming in mirrors the profile going out.

:) Can I volunteer to go back down those hills for you?

Nothing what you're doing, that's for sure. The Hill Country of Texas give you some good hills, but nothing like your talking about. Sounds like some fun riding.

Can we count the hills we pushed the bike up????
My wife and I rode in a 3 day tour in south east North Dakota...and the hill leaving Ft. Ransom was he!! pushing up.....I don't know the grade but it was too steep and long for most of the riders.

You da man. jppe. I rode 15 minutes on the trainer. Tonight my wife made homemade pasta with salmon, and we drank a couple of bottles of wine wth friends.. You're gonna destroy me on hills or flats if we ever actually meet.

Wow - some day I'd love to come on down and try to tackle some of you hills!

86 miles with 8330 feet of climbing. Goodness. I'm getting angina even thinking about it.

Do you use MotionBased? We'd love to share your pain.

We have some offroad hills round here that are unclimbable. Only one thing for them- You do not go any where near them. Even downhill on them is tricky so what were you thinking of.

Jppe has finally flipped.

Just reading about your ride made me tired. Around here our hills along the lake are actually large sand dunes. Further north they can get kind of steep. I vaguely remember pedaling like crazy and going about as fast a someone walking to get up one large one (and wondering how foolish I must look to someone driving by). Nothing like you did though. You da man.

Thats impressive! I am really working on my climbing, I love reading these because it makes what I am trying to do, so doable!

Impressive jppe!

I'll have to pass on riding in the Blue Ridge Mountains - even the downhill speed scares me:eek:

Way to go!! For this early in the season, that's some serious climbing! Strike that - that's a good hard ride for any time of the season!

That sounds like one tough ride!
This Friday I'll be making a second attempt at the biggest hill I have ever tried to climb, Brasstown Bald. When I went up it to view last year's Tour de Georgia I walked as much as I rode of the 2-1/2 mile climb. This time I'm taking a secret weapon with me.
http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d195/GonzoDawg/bicycles/RB-1/th_megarange.jpg (http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d195/GonzoDawg/bicycles/RB-1/megarange.jpg)

I saw a ride submitted on MotionBased by ncmt, in which he or she rode up something like 3000-4000 ft straight up with grades at times apporoaching 25%. His heart rate was at 95% for most of the ride, and he finished with 71 miles under his belt.

Whoever you are, I salute you, you animal.

On my 39/25, I run into problems over 20%. You are a good climber, regardless of gearing. The most I've done is about 65 miles and about 5200 feet of climbing. I'm thinking of getting a compact chainring - or new legs...:rolleyes:

Congrats on the great ride. On Easter, the NorCal Bike forum organized a group ride. Below is the graph of our ride up to the top of Skyline. This is a typical ride if one rides to the top of Skyline or goes over Skyline to the coast. Likewise, there are some great climbs up Mount Diablo and Mount Hamilton both longer with about the same grade. There is a sanctioned hill climb race up Mount Hamilton coming up in which we may participate.

http://i170.photobucket.com/albums/u250/rallen94402/BF%20Easter%20Ride/Elevation.jpg

Congrats on the great ride. On Easter, the NorCal Bike forum organized a group ride. Below is the graph of our ride up to the top of Skyline. This is a typical ride if one rides to the top of Skyline or goes over Skyline to the coast. Likewise, there are some great climbs up Mount Diablo and Mount Hamilton both longer with about the same grade. There is a sanctioned hill climb race up Mount Hamilton coming up in which we may participate.

http://i170.photobucket.com/albums/u250/rallen94402/BF%20Easter%20Ride/Elevation.jpg

Wow-looks like a great little ride. Start out climbing with average grades 5-6% for over an hour. A little later some great downhills for 9 miles!!!

Holy cow! I was griping about that 250 foot climb on last Thursday's ride.......


What were they thinking tossing in that section before the 6 mile climb!!!


What the hill were they thinking?

That is a super impressive ride and definitely gets me stoked! I have a bunch of hill climb rides scheduled in next couple months - they range from 84 miles to 143 miles and have anywhere from 6,500 feet of elevation gain to 10,000 feet of gain (we're lucky to have 2 volcanoes - Mt. St. Helens and Mt. Rainier - in the area with some nice roads around the flanks). The training problem is that around my immediate area the hills are only .8 to 1.4 miles long with 6-8% grades. So that means hill repeats which are very hard and deadly boring. Oh what I'd give for the ride you described!

Holy smoke.:eek: :( :)

Holy smoke.:eek: :( :)
+ Whatever! Man looking at that makes my whole body hurt.

That graph would be my HEART RATE if I tackled a hill like that.

I need to find a profile on Tuna Canyon Rd. in the Malibu hills. I have climbed it 8 times, but never had the guts to descend it, particularly on the 4 trips with glued-on tubulars.

My big climb only has 1368 feet of elevation gain, but it does it in 2.3 miles :eek:
http://www.toporoute.com/cgi-bin/getSavedRoute.cgi?routeKey=JDWCLUBKSKBGKGD

Watch the Giro this year and you will get to see the Pros ride this one: http://www.cyclingnews.com/road/2007//giro07/?id=stages/giro0717

The final (of four) climbs that day has a 3.6 mile stretch in the middle that averages 14.9%. Steepest ramp is 22%. The stage is about 90 miles and has about 11000 feet of climbing. And did I mention that they will be riding fast?

Watch the Giro this year and you will get to see the Pros ride this one: http://www.cyclingnews.com/road/2007//giro07/?id=stages/giro0717

The final (of four) climbs that day has a 3.6 mile stretch in the middle that averages 14.9%. Steepest ramp is 22%. The stage is about 90 miles and has about 11000 feet of climbing. And did I mention that they will be riding fast?
:eek:

ANd if that was not wicked enough three days earlier they race over this stage http://www.cyclingnews.com/road/2007//giro07/?id=stages/giro0715

120 miles and about 15000feet of climbing.

ANd if that was not wicked enough three days earlier they race over this stage http://www.cyclingnews.com/road/2007//giro07/?id=stages/giro0715

120 miles and about 15000feet of climbing.
I didn't see it - do you know if there's a climb this year up to the Madonna del Ghisallo? I'm riding that in mid June & was hoping there'd still be a draft from the peloton that would help me.

Wow, I think my heart rate started going up just thinking about those hills. Good for you!

Jen