I went on a short ride with a friend after work. He's a very serious rider, who does well when he races. It was a 50 minute ride of 12 miles with 1200 feet of climbing with the climbing in 3 hills -1 a short punchy hill of about 500 yards, the second being a little over a mile long and the third being about a half a mile at just the right incline to be a true suffer fest. Anyway we went out hard into a head wind but with me doing the pulling for the first few miles including up and over the first hill at 14 mph (never did that before), then he took over and did almost all the pulling the rest of the way (very normal).

At the end of the ride as we stopped at my house he said, you know Nathan your a lot stronger than you were when you road all the time before. Before was a good 3+ years ago so it was really nice to hear.

I wore my heart rate monitor outside for the first time this year, and my heart didn't go below 154 bpm until the last downhill at mile 11. I hit 174 at least 3 or four times, but other than the one hill that always kicks my you know what, I didn't feel too on the limit or beyond recovery.

Just thought I'd share.

Easy Crusher! I think a heart rate over 160 is getting pretty high.

220 minus your age is the standard for MAXHR. I'm 48 and can hit 172 safely ;) (Presuming no heart disease, of course.....)

How old are ya?

YEAH BABY! Keep riding them hills, it gets even better! I had a couple of buds (70 lbs liter than myself) that used to thrash me on mtn climbs. I kept riding the hills making great improvements. They won't play with me anymore!:D

JUST DO IT!:D

I'm 36 and 2 years ago during a stretch of working full time, going to school full time, and commuting 3 hours a day I had a couple anxiety attacks that resulted in me having a stress test. After doing well on the treadmill, I asked if I could keep going to establish a max heart rate for exercise purposes. The doc said yes, but stopped me at 190 because there was another test scheduled and not because I maxed out.

He said I probably could have gone to 195. So pushing 174 is high but not a big deal. I hit 188 on a stationary bike last week doing a sustained 30 minute hill climb setting at 190 rpms. That didn't feel particularly good, but it only to 3 minutes to get back down to 145 so it wasn't too bad. I don't want to do that again though.

Easy Crusher! I think a heart rate over 160 is getting pretty high.

Some of my higher tempo rides this year have been 160+ bpm AVERAGE for the entire ride... One ride in particular, which was right at 30 miles, my HR average for the ride was 164 bpm. That's not my peak, thats my average!

My average HR for the year (27 rides total) is 151 bpm. 95% of all my rides are 30+ miles, with nearly half being 50+ miles. I'm 39 years old. You can check out my riding journal at:

http://www.bikejournal.com/journal_public.asp?rname=PelotonRacer2

If you know your MHR, then you know where you can safely ride for long periods of time. My MHR is 190 for example, so 160 isn't all that much.

Climbing burns more calories, will make you stronger, AND even make you faster on the flats.

Oh, and BTW, I used to be a Clyde a couple years ago. :) I lost 57 pounds in my first full year of cycling.

BTW here is the mapmyroute.com route info. This is my flat route.

Midland loophttp://www.mapmyride.com/ride/united-states/md/frostburg/352532300

I'd be curious if this is a typical flat route for others in the mountains of the mid-Atlantic region.