I climb some gradients faster than I descend them.
08-28-14, 08:44 PM
#1
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I climb some gradients faster than I descend them.
I have a gentle 2% or 3% gradient on my usual training ride and I've noticed that I climb it on the way back faster than I come down it going out. I assume this is just adrenaline, warm muscles, and gaining a level of fitness that means that I'm not really tired at the end of my ride.......but it feels good. I'm sure others have noticed this too.
08-28-14, 11:02 PM
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Ditto
On a 3% downhill gradient you are almost certainly moving at 20mph or faster unless you just aren't pedaling at all. To do 20mph coming back you'd probably need to be north of 400W.
Somewhere between 1-2% is where I'd say that it might be plausible under the right conditions (i.e. headwind out, tail back + hammering) but even then it's a pretty significant different in effort to go at the same speed, even with a +/-1%, probably need at least 75% more power.
On a 3% downhill gradient you are almost certainly moving at 20mph or faster unless you just aren't pedaling at all. To do 20mph coming back you'd probably need to be north of 400W.
Somewhere between 1-2% is where I'd say that it might be plausible under the right conditions (i.e. headwind out, tail back + hammering) but even then it's a pretty significant different in effort to go at the same speed, even with a +/-1%, probably need at least 75% more power.
08-29-14, 02:24 AM
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I have a gentle 2% or 3% gradient on my usual training ride and I've noticed that I climb it on the way back faster than I come down it going out. I assume this is just adrenaline, warm muscles, and gaining a level of fitness that means that I'm not really tired at the end of my ride.......but it feels good. I'm sure others have noticed this too.
08-29-14, 02:40 AM
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Not exactly, but something similar. There are some uphill segments on the Central Park loop that I like to push myself up, and I'm usually conservative approaching the downhills. As a result, there have been times when my fastest segment was an uphill, but only because I chose that point to drope the hamer.
08-29-14, 05:27 AM
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I ride a lot of dirt/gravel roads. I climb the shallower grades twice as fast as going down the larger grades.
08-29-14, 08:52 AM
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3% takes some work to go up fast. There's something missing to this story if you go up faster than down.
08-29-14, 09:18 AM
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Had something similar on a recent ride but it was a gentle gradient and it was the result of an 8 mph wind. I'm also much slower than normal for the first 15 or 20 minutes give or take ... so I call that warm up and it counts for nothing other than warm up. Definitely faster at the end of a one hour ride, all other things being equal.
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