Originally Posted by
reppans
What's so embarrassing? The same thought has certainly crossed my mind climbing short steeps (although my weight differential is hiking 20 lbs vs biking 50 lbs).
I too cycle uphill about twice as fast as walking uphill.... but my heart is pounding twice as fast to match. Yes, I know my gearing just isn't low enough for the steepest stuff, but what about running uphill to match my cycling heart rate (i.e., same effort) - which would be faster in a race given the mechanical advantages of a bicycle?
A quick search for 'race up mountain - run vs bike' yields the Race To The Top of Vermont - a 4.3 mile, 2564 ft vertical climb up Mt Mansfield, the highest peak in VT.
Race To The Top Of Vermont
Neither runner nor cyclist are carrying camping gear of course, but considering an ultra-lighter can get to a pretty immaterial weights, let's put that aside for a moment and just consider the time difference between man+machine vs man as a proxy. From the rules, it appears that CX/gravel bikes w/knobbies (due to dirt road) are permissible so my guess is that the 'machine' component gets into <20 lbs range among the cycling leaders.
The
2016 Top 5 Results are closer than you'd think.
All of that might be relevant if one were only touring uphill but most people know that the ups and downs and flats create an average.
No one is really hiking 35lb's of gear on their back 100-160km's per day, day after day.
The toughest climb I have done recently is out of Kamloops westbound onto hwy 5 to tje brake check pullout at the summit. It took me about 1.5 hrs of hard grinding but would have taken nearly 1/2 a day to walk. After the 1.5 hour grind I continued riding another 100km's to Merrit. Something no hiker would/could do.