patentcad

You know, it's like I start these stupid threads in a gallant effort to impart a little Pcad Wisdom and Cycling Zen, and I suffer the slings and arrow of the assembled Fred Multitudes with some additional Road Nazi grief thrown in.




I know, I'll relax tonight and watch the Mets lose. Again.

nycphotography

Ahh. When did Garmin buy Cycleops and rebrand the product line?

ndbiker

I would say any ride where I visit my brother in Black Mountain NC. I am a flatlander (relative term as Floridians will understand it) from Ohio. I have visited him twice. Rode the Blue Ridge Parkway in Feb. above 3000 ft. it's closed to automobile traffic because of potential winter weather. We climbed 2700 ft in 12 miles (no breaks), The cool thing was coming down (no brakes). It took me 1 hr 40 min. up (yes I'm slow) and 22 min. to come down. That comes to 225 ft/m if you don't count the decent 112.5 if you do. The second time I visited we went up to Mt. Mitchell. 1600 ft. in 4 miles from the start. That was a bear even coming down the hill. The climbing was 400 ft./mile.

JohnTP

With the local terrain here it is hard to even find a truly "flat" road. It is 400 ft just to get back to my driveway!

DScott

All I can say is that if I lived somewhere flat, I'd give up cycling and take up recreational wrist slitting...

coasting 

i don't like the rolling hills i do. they are too steep for my liking. the rest on the downhill bit never last long enough to feel rested after a steep climb.

Accordion

Here in Orange County, CA, I do a 32 mile ride that I always consider hilly. In fact I always tell my wife before I go that I'm "Going to the hills".

32.85 miles and 1872 feet of overall climbing. That's hilly to me, but I've only been riding road bikes for 5 months and I'd have to DRIVE somewhere to climb more, something I'm categorically against.

chadwick

You don't know what you're missing... https://connect.garmin.com/activity/43700388

(ugh)

Sylv

No. Elevation gain is a gross measure of feet climbed. What you describe would be net elevation gain/loss.

On the topic, I'd say 50ft per mile would begin what I would consider "hilly."

DScott

I feel so bad for you that I'll refrain from the Houston jokes. Bet there's lots of time-trialists and tri-geeks in your neck of the, uh, plains...

nycphotography

4800 ft climbed in 28 miles = 171 ft per mile.

Riding home won't decrease the climbing... but it will double the length of the ride, ie 4800 ft climbed in 56 miles, or 86 ft per mile.

While your post makes it clear you understand this, I'm replying for the benefit of the masses, because apparently (based on the responses) math really is hard.

rangerdavid

I did the same calculations and came to virtually an identical conclusion recently. A hilly ride, and actually almost every single ride here in the Boone, N C area consists of approximately 1000 ft. Of climbing per 10 miles traveled. It is, of course, very easy to exceed that, but around here that is a good average. Our local century ride, the Blood Sweat and Gears ride has a little over 13,000 ft. Of climbing in a 100 mile ride.

RD

Herbie53

I think this:

>250 ft / 10 miles is rolling
>500 ft / 10 miles is hilly
>750ft / 10 miles is very hilly
>1000ft / 10 miles is mountainous

valygrl

Yes. Really I'm not confused, I'm just making a point (apparently not very clearly) that the total feet per mile is not a very good descriptor of hilliness. I was hoping umd would come make the point for me since it's analogous to average speed not being a good metric, but I guess I have to do it myself.

I wish it was hillier around here.

Lanterne Rogue

I call BS on this. I live in Colorado too and rode today from downtown Denver to the top of Mt. Evans. That's 8,900 feet of gain to an elevation of 14,100 feet, and I am pretty much dead right now. Unless you're doing laps on Mt. Evans or Grand Mesa or back-and-forths on the Peak to Peak Highway from Idaho Springs to Estes Park, I don't see how you can get 10,000 feet in a day ride from Boulder. Please enlighten us.

DScott

I'd disagree. It makes alot more sense than avg speed, and gives you a very good idea of what to expect.

A ride with 45 miles/4500 ft. of climbing is a different animal than 60 miles/1000 ft climbing, yet both may take 3 hours to complete.

What's silly is when it becomes another e-wang unit of measure.

SBRDude

In Austin, it's hilly to the west of town, at the beginning of the "texas hill country." Downtown also has some hills. To the east and north, it seems flat, but I do all my riding in the western part (where I live) and I certainly would call it hilly. There are also lots of places with bursts of 8-15% grades, which always seem hilly to me even if they're short. What we don't have, however, are long sustained climbs that last for than a few minutes. Instead, we get treated to something more akin to "hill repeats."

sfrider 

People assume that if you went up a mountain you came back down again. They also assume some portion of the ride includes getting to and from the mountain, possibly with some random rollers thrown in. So 4800 ft in 56 miles to the top of a mountain and home is how you'd characterize it. It's not a mathematically perfect description and lots of variables are missing, but for most cyclists it kind of gives them a sense of what the ride was like. No one can really get a perfect sense of it anyway short of going there and riding it for themselves...

Terex

I think people posting to this thread have been pretty good about avoiding the dang-wang thing. Or is that the wang-dang thing...

rangerdavid

I can agree with this.

brianbeech

Isn't that precisely what ft/mile is - a net elevation gain equation? They didn't ask for each number of ft/mile but rather the average - which doubling the distance with downhill would make all the difference. I see where you're coming from, and you're right, but the original question was about the net.

Of course, I suppose if someone had software that calculated just the gross measure of feet climbed per distance measure - I'd buy it and have a much better measure of something comparable to others.

7bmwm3gtr

I wish I could go more hillier than what I do, but I I've done rides that other riders have posted on Garmin connect, and I consider it hilly...

umd

The problem is that a "hilly" ride doesn't become less so just because you may have to ride to it and back. To me a ride is hilly or not based on whether or not it has a bunch of hills, not necessarily on the ft/mile, which can be misleading.

aham23

i have done:

160 miles with 5000 feet of climbing.
130 miles with 12000 feet of climbing.
62 miles with 6000 feet of climbing.
28 miles with 1200 feet of climbing.

which is hilly and which is really hilly? later.

umd

No it's gross not net. If you climb a 5000 ft mountain and return to the start, the net is 0 but the gross is 5000.