Clydesdales/Athenas (200+ lb / 91+ kg) - My route - is it hilly?

This is my route tomorrow. Compared to your route would it be considered hilly?

http://www.mapmyride.com/ride/united-kingdom/london/676606973

I'll take some pics tomorrow

Forgot to mention why I'm asking. I was wondering if I am particularly bad at climbing or is it just the route that lowers my average speed relative to what I've seen people post on BF.

Compared to mine? Hell ya! I have 20 feet of elevation change on my entire 25 mile ride. I live 20' above sea level, and it is all downhill from there to the beach :D

I'd say so. The route I consider "leg torture", here:

http://www.mapmyride.com/ride/united-states/ne/lincoln/677003749

Over that route I averaged around 17-18mph, BUT it's all highway... aka no stopping. If I would have had to stop, there'd be no way.

Nice little roller route! Worst hill I have is a short little 18% grade. It's not tall but it's STEEP, rise of 300 feet in 1600 feet traveled.

That looks a lot like where I've been riding, as far as hills go. I've wondered the same thing, about whether it's something others would consider hilly, or if it's just me. I'd say it's definitely at least rolling hills. I'm sure it's all relative - on a local bike forum, someone actually referred to this route (http://www.mapmyride.com/ride/united-states/ar/fayetteville/563764453) as "fairly flat!" With over 1000 ft of ascent, it definitely isn't FLAT!! Makes me scared to ride with them.

FWIW, Cyclostats qualifies my rides as rolling to hilly, depending where I go, and that one I posted above would be "mountainous."

I'd consider that route more rolling than hilly. It may be hilly to you now, but as your riding fitness improves you'll consider it rolling too. :)

That looks a lot like where I've been riding, as far as hills go. I've wondered the same thing, about whether it's something others would consider hilly, or if it's just me. I'd say it's definitely at least rolling hills. I'm sure it's all relative - on a local bike forum, someone actually referred to this route (http://www.mapmyride.com/ride/united-states/ar/fayetteville/563764453) as "fairly flat!" With over 1000 ft of ascent, it definitely isn't FLAT!! Makes me scared to ride with them.

FWIW, Cyclostats qualifies my rides as rolling to hilly, depending where I go, and that one I posted above would be "mountainous."


Okay someone check my math.

I pulled the raw data for this route and assessed the biggest climb that comes between 8 and 19 miles. The raw data showed the lowest elevation of 1274.84 at 8.04 miles and a highest of 1808.21 at 19.28 miles. This make for 533.37 feet of elevation change in 59347.2 feet(11.24 miles). This works out to a .89% grade so a little less than 1%. does this sound right?

Edit: I'll add that the steepest climb between 4.68 miles and 6.48 miles works out to a 4.1% grade.

my commute: http://www.mapmyride.com/ride/united-states/co/littleton/677334475

Hills, hills, hills. They really kick my butt, and there are so many around here too. You just have to get used to riding them. Here is a hill route that I did yesterday on the way to work (http://www.mapmyride.com/ride/united-states/co/fort-collins/677480715).

With a bathroom break and redlights, I averaged 16.9 mph. Not bad at all for me. It did not hurt that the hills tended to be short distance-wise, that there were plenty of downhills, and that the second half of the ride was mostly flat-rolling.

This is my route tomorrow. Compared to your route would it be considered hilly?
What is the Climb in feet per mile?

The general clasification is:
Flat is < 50 feet of climb per mile
Hilly is < 85 feet of climb per mile
Verry Hilly is < 100 feet of climb per mile
Mountainous is > 100 feet of climb per mile

Around here most of my rides are 70 to 90 fpm.
My commute is only 4.5 miles but it is over 90 fpm

And yes, I am a LOT slower than when on the flat. When I ride a flat route my speed increases 2 to 3 mph.

I use this formula to determine how hilly a ride is. (#Feet/100)/Miles So, a 10 mile ride with 500 feet of climbing comes out to (500/100)/10 = .5

My scale goes something like:

0 - .3 = pancake flat
.3-.5 = rolling hills (or maybe one steep climb and otherwise flat)
.5 - .7 = hilly ride
.7 - .9 = climbing ride
> .9 = torturous fun :)

It's not perfect, but I find it works pretty well for me.


edit...

hahaha, looks like MikeR and I are on the same page

How do you count feet of climbing? Total elevation gain, or total going up? (example: Up 50 ft, then down 50 ft, then up 50 ft. 50 ft of climbing, or 100 ft of climbing?)

How do you count feet of climbing? Total elevation gain, or total going up? (example: Up 50 ft, then down 50 ft, then up 50 ft. 50 ft of climbing, or 100 ft of climbing?)

well you went up both sections of 50', right? that's 100' of climbing :)

I'm now in North Dakota and all of the rides are totally flat so yours would be considered hilly. On the other hand, compared to my rides in Pennsylvania, your ride is not very hilly.

Oh no! My legs say it's hilly but it's only rolling. Maybe I should move to florida and do that 20 ft mountain.

How do you measure the amount of climbing? If in Becky's example you need to measure each 50 ft, is there some kind of tool in map my ride?

Bikely.com is much more climbing data friendly. It will give you a ride profile, total climbing and total descent. I'd call that route rolling hills, far from brutal.

Oh no! My legs say it's hilly but it's only rolling. Maybe I should move to florida and do that 20 ft mountain.

How do you measure the amount of climbing? If in Becky's example you need to measure each 50 ft, is there some kind of tool in map my ride?
If you move to Fla you 'll be doing your hill intervals riding over bridges.;):p:D

I thought that my hills were pretty hard too, until I looked at those formulas. I can't think of a place near my house where I could climb that high (more than say 1500 ft) without riding so far, that the formulas indicate that it is just "rolling". Granted, most of the slopes around here are pretty gentle, with respect to percent slope, compared to some places. Do you guys find places to ride uphill, where you don't ride back down again, and essentially double your distance?

For instance, most of the climbing on the route that I did yesterday takes place within a contiguous 12-mile section, and it comes out to be about a 1.16 with that formula. But the entire ride is 54 miles, and scores out at about a 0.25. Hmmm...that 12-mile section defined the ride as hilly for me.

Is there another site that does the same thing? Map my ride is missing everything around here, it's just has the main roads and no image of my house or land.

This is my route tomorrow. Compared to your route would it be considered hilly?
I'd call that quite hilly. I've actually spent quite a bit of time in that area (I used to work with a company in Stevenage), and the hills tend to roll nicely.

I like the route -- gets you to Old Knebworth for lunch at the Lytton Arms, which is one of my favorite pubs ...

Why worry about speed? Enjoy the ride!

Gmaps Pedometer does an elevation and terrain graph, but it's still Googlew Map mdriven and some areas have better resolution than others.

I thought that my hills were pretty hard too, until I looked at those formulas. I can't think of a place near my house where I could climb that high (more than say 1500 ft) without riding so far, that the formulas indicate that it is just "rolling". Granted, most of the slopes around here are pretty gentle, with respect to percent slope, compared to some places. Do you guys find places to ride uphill, where you don't ride back down again, and essentially double your distance?

For instance, most of the climbing on the route that I did yesterday takes place within a contiguous 12-mile section, and it comes out to be about a 1.16 with that formula. But the entire ride is 54 miles, and scores out at about a 0.25. Hmmm...that 12-mile section defined the ride as hilly for me.

I don't tend to do a lot of rides like you describe. . I usually go long and flat endurance rides without any climbs or I climb climb climb climb climb. When I do though, I still don't classify the ride as a hilly ride.

To get the > 100 feet / mile ratio, I wind up doing 50 - 60 miles with 5000-6000 feet of climbing, which yes, means +5000 feet in 20-25 miles. I live in the mountains around Los Angeles (Santa Monica Mountains). Any ride that leaves from my house is a minimum of 1000 feet of climbing since I either go down to the bottom of the mountain and climb back up, or climb to the top of the mountain and come back down.

Before I moved to my place now, I wasn't able to do these sorts of rides. You condition yourself to your surroundings. I can climb (slowly mind you), but I can't ride in humidity. I also don't ride for high average speeds since I don't get many flat speed rides as I use hills to push myself. I can ride in the wind since I find it fairly similar to climbing.

OK Ronjon, how do you rate GMR (nearly 5,000 in 21 miles),Breathless Agony (12,000 in 74 miles), and Ride the Bear (nearly10,000ft in 62 miles)?..I'm missing something in the fomula. I'm getting numbers all over the place.

try routeslip.com, seems like it works out okay.

my ride to work is a 5.5, kind of more than i expected it to be

Or, like me (who also lives in the Los Angeles area), I go on club/group rides--often with Ronjon. I rarely, if ever, tackle 1.0+ (10,000 feet per 100 miles) rides on my own. Around here, that's high desert/mountainous areas and can be dangerous. Plus, my knees do need a break from all that climbing :)

OK Ronjon, how do you rate GMR (nearly 5,000 in 21 miles),Breathless Agony (12,000 in 74 miles), and Ride the Bear (nearly10,000ft in 62 miles)?..I'm missing something in the fomula. I'm getting numbers all over the place.

You extrapolate the mileage (and feet climbed) into a 100-miler. So:

GMR would be about a 2.1 ride (ouch!!)
Breathless Agony a 1.6 ride (still ouch) and
Ride the Bear a 1.8 ride (do I need to spell it out for ya?)

This means, GMR would gain 21,000 feet in 100 miles, BA 16,000 fet, and RtB 18,000 feet in 100-miles.

:)

OK Ronjon, how do you rate GMR (nearly 5,000 in 21 miles),Breathless Agony (12,000 in 74 miles), and Ride the Bear (nearly10,000ft in 62 miles)?..I'm missing something in the fomula. I'm getting numbers all over the place.

Well, if you're doing GMR, you also have to come back down. So figuring you do a straight out and back you'd get 5000 feet at 42 miles. My formula for that would make it a 1.19

Ride the bear would be a 1.6

Breathless agony finishes with would be 1.62, but theres the descent which pushes the mileage to something like 110, so that'd be 1.09

In other words, they're all torturous fun mountain rides. You do have add distance in of course, a 20 mile 2000 foot day isn't as hard as a 100 mile, 5000 foot day.

Oh ok thanx! They are all good F-U-N rides then!:D.....well, when you're done with 'em!:D

I don't know how to figure out the elevation but I would say this route is a medium. With rolling hills if someone can find some of the grades it would be nice. This is my fun/daily route, but then again I am a beastly climber because of this route.

There are two big climbs.

http://www.bikely.com/maps/bike-path/Daily-loop

I am not actually sure how to figure out elevation at all for that route. So I am only going off what my legs say.

Since I got my new bike today I just went out and rode, here is the one I did today. It was moderately flat overall. If someone can figure out the grades and elevation changes I would love it really. So I can tell my coach. I don't know the stuff for this one since my Garmin is broken = (.

http://www.bikely.com/maps/bike-path/New-Bike-test-ride

well you went up both sections of 50', right? that's 100' of climbing :)That's right. I map my routes in a program called Topo it tells me how many feet of climb on the route.

These are approxinmations
4 KM @0.05%/\
12 KM @0.0875%\/
8KM @ 0.015% /\
24 KM @0.029%\/
12KM @0.014% /\
16KM @0.014% \/
16 KM @0.014%/\
5KM @ 0.036% \/

535ft in 65 miles? Afraid to say I'd consider that pretty gosh darn flat. Although I'm guessing its a series of small elevation longish rollers. South England never seemed particularly hilly to me, but I didn't have a chance to cycle its environs.

This is a hill training ride (http://www.mapmyride.com/ride/united-states/pa/phoenixville/643440291) by my house, 737ft of ascent in 11.5 miles

Here (http://www.mapmyride.com/ride/united-states/ca/santa-clarita/679868951) is a hilly ride I did a couple months back, called "May Canyon". The hardest part was the large climb was done on a small bike/hike path wide enough for 2 bikes (not too bad), but the pavement was missing in many areas, leaving dirt and rocks (still not too bad, although made standing difficult), and it was terribly uneven (the worst), never letting me get into some sort of climbing rhythm. At times, 23% grade, other times 5-12%. But this went on for ~5 miles. It hurt. The 23% was right at the beginning too, which killed any sort of strength I had for the rest of the climb :rolleyes: All told, 4,200 feet in 48 miles (0.875 rating).

I love this graph!:D The ride I did a couple of months ago. 12,000ft in 114 miles. Most of it in the first 74. I'm planning to do 3 more similar rides in 08 for the King of the Mountains challenge. This one only pitches up to 14%(?) at the most,but it's a long climb.

http://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l267/gulpxtreme/BAProfile.jpg

Hey, Beanz...I may join you on the KoM Challenge. I'm thinking about it. But, gosh, doing Baldy hurts and that's only 6,000 feet in 60 miles! I'll have to get in some good hill training.

Hey, Beanz...I may join you on the KoM Challenge. I'm thinking about it. But, gosh, doing Baldy hurts and that's only 6,000 feet in 60 miles! I'll have to get in some good hill training.


You should! I pace myself up the climbs. I try to carry the highest pace possible for myself. No sprinting unless I know the end is near, then I might if I have some left. I think this eliminates some of the pain!:D

I remember riding by you in the Bloat ride. You are very fast on the climbs. I think if you backed off a bit you'd still be fast but with less pain. Heck, you'd ride twice as far effortlessly!

535ft in 65 miles? Afraid to say I'd consider that pretty gosh darn flat. Although I'm guessing its a series of small elevation longish rollers. South England never seemed particularly hilly to me, but I didn't have a chance to cycle its environs.

This is a hill training ride (http://www.mapmyride.com/ride/united-states/pa/phoenixville/643440291) by my house, 737ft of ascent in 11.5 miles

Here's my commute, in the same basic area:

http://www.bikely.com/maps/bike-path/commute58560

I don't know if this qualifies as hilly or not.

I did the ride today and unfortunately I wasn't able to take pics since some of the group I ride with came along and therefore it turned out not to be so leisurely. As always I end up killing myself just keeping up! Next week I'll take the pics on a solo ride because it really was a nice ride. I'll even take a pic of your favourite pub after a beer, Mongo. Nearly suggested a stop there but the others had past it by the time I got to it.

OK OK I concede it is NOT a hilly course; well certainly not compared with some of the ones you guys posted. There were not many long long never ending climbs, but it still absolutely murdered me. By the time I got home I just wanted to be put down humanely or otherwise!

What I realised was my problem is not specifically climbing. I'm simply not fit enough to keep climbing at a decent pace for that far. I had no problem keeping up for most of the course including the climbs but at some point about 20 miles from the end something just snapped and I just couldn't keep the same level of effort going. It was just hard to turn the pedals. Average speed dropped from about 18 for the first 40 miles to a measly 13 for the last 20. Previously I felt fine doing the whole route because I was taking it easy. Although the route is not hilly, it was just all up and down with many steep little climbs. I was either climbing or charging downhill with nowhere where I could just relax and keep peddling consistently. I am just not fit enough to recover (in the last 20 miles) from each climb in time for the next one which comes up too soon for me. In the end I had to tell the others to go ahead and not wait for me with 10 miles left...I just wasn't going to recover and I knew I would be limping home with the steepest hills still to come.

I think I need to modify my training schedule. Do no more than 40 miles rides if doing hard effort. Or do longer rides at a gentle pace but not both.

Here's my commute, in the same basic area:

http://www.bikely.com/maps/bike-path/commute58560

I don't know if this qualifies as hilly or not.

Nice rollers! You make great time going to work, I'd bet!:D

This was as close as I could approximate on my tour of the UP.

http://www.mapmyride.com/ride/united-states/mi/paradise/681987572

Check out the Google Earth views! They are cool!

What I realised was my problem is not specifically climbing. I'm simply not fit enough to keep climbing at a decent pace for that far. I had no problem keeping up for most of the course including the climbs but at some point about 20 miles from the end something just snapped and I just couldn't keep the same level of effort going. It was just hard to turn the pedals. Average speed dropped from about 18 for the first 40 miles to a measly 13 for the last 20. Previously I felt fine doing the whole route because I was taking it easy. Although the route is not hilly, it was just all up and down with many steep little climbs. I was either climbing or charging downhill with nowhere where I could just relax and keep peddling consistently. I am just not fit enough to recover (in the last 20 miles) from each climb in time for the next one which comes up too soon for me. In the end I had to tell the others to go ahead and not wait for me with 10 miles left...I just wasn't going to recover and I knew I would be limping home with the steepest hills still to come.Although technically not a bonk, I'd have called it such. You just exceeded your limits for the first 40 miles, and your body finally said: "Enough" and shut you down.


I think I need to modify my training schedule. Do no more than 40 miles rides if doing hard effort. Or do longer rides at a gentle pace but not both.Yep...you'll get stronger. Also, make sure you are eating on any ride longer than 2 hours. Lots of fluids, too. Keep pushing. You'll find that one day, you can make it all the way. :)

I went and did GMR today (Glendora Mtn Road). 42 miles with 5,000 ft of climbing. I got up about 4,000 when I encountered this junk someone ditched up on the road. The surrounding roads are usually closed to traffic, has been for a couple of years. They open it up for one week and look what happens! Pizzer but it did give me a chance to stop and take some pics. I struggled today and really sucked! But at least I got my bad day out of the way. It's a 21 mile climb. I got to 15 and almost turned around. I figured I'd fight the burn and complete the ride. The entire time I kept thinking of this thread. And no, it wasn't fun!:D

Junk was spread between these piles for 4 miles. BTW, I didn't stop for pics till the way down. I was too busy enjoying the burn on the way up!:p
http://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l267/gulpxtreme/GMR.jpg
http://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l267/gulpxtreme/GMR2.jpg
http://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l267/gulpxtreme/GMR3.jpg
http://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l267/gulpxtreme/GMR4.jpg

One of my favorite rides is from about 200 feet elevation to 3,000 in about 10 miles - and it isn't paved. There is a great German Bakery on the other side of the mountain that makes it all worth while. :D

One of my favorite rides is from about 200 feet elevation to 3,000 in about 10 miles - and it isn't paved. There is a great German Bakery on the other side of the mountain that makes it all worth while. :D

D@M! All I got is a tiny post office for the mtn dwellers. Oh, there is a small cafe but filled with Harley dudes. They look at you funny when you're alone in spandex. SO I stay away!:p

I need to plan a route with KFC at the end. Now where did I put that bucket of chicken?

http://www.google.co.uk/maps?ll=51.474971,-0.295075&spn=0.007285,0.010664&t=k&hl=en

Type KFC into the search!

It really grinds my gears when people do stuff like that. Today this beautiful climb I was on was ruined once I looked over the side and saw what looked to be everything in someone's bathroom. Someone on the road probably did a remodel and instead of disposing of things properly, they just threw it over the side where people in cars wouldn't see it. Stupid people.

Anyways, congrats on your route today. That certainly sounds very tough and I'm sure it was tons of fun too. :)

I went and did GMR today (Glendora Mtn Road). 42 miles with 5,000 ft of climbing. I got up about 4,000 when I encountered this junk someone ditched up on the road. The surrounding roads are usually closed to traffic, has been for a couple of years. They open it up for one week and look what happens! Pizzer but it did give me a chance to stop and take some pics. I struggled today and really sucked! But at least I got my bad day out of the way. It's a 21 mile climb. I got to 15 and almost turned around. I figured I'd fight the burn and complete the ride. The entire time I kept thinking of this thread. And no, it wasn't fun!:D

Junk was spread between these piles for 4 miles. BTW, I didn't stop for pics till the way down. I was too busy enjoying the burn on the way up!:p
http://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l267/gulpxtreme/GMR.jpg
http://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l267/gulpxtreme/GMR2.jpg
http://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l267/gulpxtreme/GMR3.jpg
http://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l267/gulpxtreme/GMR4.jpg