Originally Posted by sstorkel (Post 16626907)

That's what I thought... until I did the math: 30 mile ride * 151 feet/mile = 4,530 feet of elevation gain. For a ride that short, that's quite a bit of climbing!

For perspective, the Everest Challenge bicycle race is 29,000 feet of climbing spread across 200 miles (and 2 days): 29,000 feet / 200 miles = 145 feet/mile.

Originally Posted by mrodgers (Post 16629834)

Man, I don't think I want to ever be doing 2500, 3500, 5000 feet rides like you guys are talking about, lol.

Originally Posted by mrodgers (Post 16629834)

Have to say, you folks are making me feel like a total wuss, lol.

Originally Posted by CommuteCommando (Post 16630059)

I used to avoid hills. Five miles was a push. I have lost about 100 lb in the last five years. There is one route I used to take to the coast that was as flat as I could get it. After about a year I took off on a ride, and instead of turning right, I looked ahead at a hill that had been taunting me, and went straight.

1 - San Diego, CA
2 - San Diego, CA

Patience is key. Some will go from slug to superman in months. I went from slug to pretty good in a couple of years.

YMMV.

Originally Posted by CommuteCommando (Post 16630059)

I used to avoid hills.

Originally Posted by jsigone (Post 16630337)

I need a power tap so I can see what little power my legs churn out.....excuse to build another wheelset? LOL

Originally Posted by TrojanHorse (Post 16630268)

Me too, until I was about 40. Go figure.

Now, like an escaped mental patient, I actually go looking for them. I actually went up 21,168 feet in March this year, which is a new personal best (my old record was 20,588) Considering that I was only trying to get my miles up this month and wasn't actively trying to hit any particular number for climbing, I'm pretty happy with the outcome.

No doubt about it though - climbing is harder when you're overweight. you can't cheat physics.

I rode up a nice little hill today - it's not quite a mile and just over 200 feet of elevation change, so the average slope is 5%. It's harder in the middle and easier at the top but I averaged about 300W and 9.4 mph at 220 lb. Some skinny malook ALSO averaged 300W and I see he's in the 125-149 weight category in Strava and he went up that daggum hill at 14 mph.

Le Sigh.

Originally Posted by jsigone (Post 16630337)

I need a power tap so I can see what little power my legs churn out.....excuse to build another wheelset? LOL

Originally Posted by TrojanHorse (Post 16630268)

I rode up a nice little hill today - it's not quite a mile and just over 200 feet of elevation change, so the average slope is 5%. It's harder in the middle and easier at the top but I averaged about 300W and 9.4 mph at 220 lb. Some skinny malook ALSO averaged 300W and I see he's in the 125-149 weight category in Strava and he went up that daggum hill at 14 mph.

Le Sigh.

Originally Posted by IBOHUNT (Post 16631143)

If I were to get another Powertap wheel I'd build a Stages crank arm...

Of course no reason to do that until mid May when I'm allowed back on the bike.
Doc says I can do some 'light' jogging. Really Doc? You used the word 'light' when you see someone that tells his weight using the British Stone measurement because 14 sounds better than 200?
That there rankled me a bit.

Originally Posted by jsigone (Post 16631367)

I wish they would just sell the module plus the epoxy instead of all those ugly cranks. I'm a SRAM user, I can't put shimano cranks on my bike....I might be escorted to the back of the peloton:roflmao2:

Originally Posted by jsigone (Post 16631367)

I wish they would just sell the module plus the epoxy instead of all those ugly cranks. I'm a SRAM user, I can't put shimano cranks on my bike....I might be escorted to the back of the peloton:roflmao2:

Originally Posted by TrojanHorse (Post 16632728)

They do sell an Apex crank. I'm sure it would clash with my beat-up Red cranks though. :lol:

By the way, Power2Max looks like an interesting alternative. if you have a compatible crank, it's not much at all, um, relatively speaking. The ONLY thing I don't like about stages is that it only measures your left leg and I'm pretty sure I have a decent imbalance between my two legs (right knee issues)

Originally Posted by IBOHUNT (Post 16633496)

Power2Max could be a choice for me. With the Stages swapping arms out tween bikes is easier then cranksets. With my pFTP it really don't matter really :mad:

Originally Posted by jsigone (Post 16633769)

is that still a one sided device or does it come w/ both crank arms? If so it's about a 1/3 cheaper then SRM which is nice saving for this cat7 racer

Originally Posted by TrojanHorse (Post 16633800)

OMG the sandbagging is out of control! Where's the flooding?

Originally Posted by TrojanHorse (Post 16633800)

Stages is left crank only, so it estimates. For most people (ie you) it's probably perfectly fine because your power output is pretty balanced. I don't know that they can get it on carbon cranks though, which may explain why red and force cranks are MIA.

Originally Posted by TrojanHorse (Post 16633800)

Power2Max looks interesting but I'm not sure I want a rotor crank, despite all the drooling about them on the 41.

Originally Posted by TrojanHorse (Post 16630363)

Holler and I'll trade you for a couple weeks. Nobody's got noodle legs like me though. :lol:

Originally Posted by mrodgers (Post 16619854)

I was wondering what you folks consider a lot of climbing during a ride. I live in nothing but hills and I will be riding on the road with this new bike as opposed to riding the flat bike trail along the river on the old junk bike. So far, I've done 2 rides on the 2 nice days we've had this month out on the road and love it. It is so much easier riding up the hills compared to the heavy old worn out Walmart bike. Along with that, I can actually shift it in preparation for getting into the next hill. The old bike was really slow to shift and I would have to stop 90% of the time to lift up the back tire and spin the cranks around to get it to shift down as I lost momentum too fast.

I think that riding on the roads around me is pretty extreme for climbing. I read all the time people posting climbing numbers and average speed on rides and I wonder about what the climbing actually is. It seems to me that it would be far easier to climb 500 feet over the long run if it was a more consistant low grade climb rather than constant up and down.

My example is behind my house. I want to ride about an hour or so daily. I have done this on the old bike, but haven't tried it yet on the new bike. I marked out 5 miles on this road on RidewithGPS.com and it tells me for 5 miles, it is 414 feet of climbing. The elevation difference between home and the turnaround point is only 64 feet with home being the higher. If I look at this correctly, it tells me I am going uphill 414 feet and downhill 478 feet. At that point I turn around so I climb up on the way back 478 feet and am going downhill 414 feet. Total climbing is 892 feet climbing for a 10 mile ride, but because it is almost a constant up and down, that is more 892 feet of climbing in half of the ride or 5 miles.

Is this what you would consider a lot of climbing? Last year on the flat bike trail, I averaged 14-15 mph over 12 miles. When I rode on the roads, I averaged 5 to 6 mph, less than half. One of the problems I have with riding on the road is there really is no break or recovery from the previous climbing because I am back down that same elevation change on the downhill in mere seconds then trudging up the next hill. It was pretty normal for the downhill to be coasting on the brakes at 28 mph at times. The next hill would almost immediately stop the momentum from the 24-28 mph coasting and I would only get about 1/8th or less of the way up the hill before having to pedal again, so the coasting didn't help on the uphills nor did I want it to because there's no exercise gained in just coasting. I certainly couldn't pedal anywhere near 24+ mph on that old bike to get anything out of going down the hills. I could on the new bike, but I don't want to be going that fast anyways, as I said, that was coasting while on the brakes to slow me down. It also would make a lot more gear changes to get to being able to pedal up the hill if I tried to pedal on the downhills.

I can't figure out with a map what the average grade of my hills are, but it appears to be a lot of 5-6% worth of grades. The constant hills would be approximately up about a quarter mile and back down a quarter mile, so like I said, the decents take just a few seconds and then it takes me 10 or 15 minutes to climb back up the next one.

I understand that climbing gets easier and better the more you do, but dagnabbit, I sure would like even an 1/8th mile of flat to ride on every now and then rather than constant coasting and climbing. It is real nice to just take off from the garage rather than leave the kids alone (the youngest won't come for a bike ride with me) and travel to the bike trail but the constant up and down I think will just wear me out.

Sorry, I'm long winded. What do you consider a lot of climbing and would you consider my example a lot of climbing?

Originally Posted by Jbo26 (Post 21346063)

100 ft. A mile is a lot of climbing.

Originally Posted by Jbo26 (Post 21346063)

100 ft. A mile is a lot of climbing.

Originally Posted by chadtrent (Post 21346472)

This is pretty much my viewpoint.

Originally Posted by mrodgers (Post 21352454)

Where were you guys 4 years ago? I've kinda given up and bought a motorcycle instead...:lol:​​​​​​​