Originally Posted by
rm -rf
With those numbers, you don't need 12 weeks before the climb. You could do it next week.
Thanks for the encouragement. I don't think my quads would agree at this point, though. Even though power is power, strength is still needed for sustained climbing. I'd say my fitness level now is roughly what it was the first time I tried that climb, eight years ago. On that ride, my legs gave out before reaching the top, so I have to consider the limits of muscle fatigue in my equation.
Is this the Paris Mountain climb?
strava.com/segments/522982. About 2 miles, 7% avg, 800 feet of climbing. Strava shows some sections near 10% grade. The other side is has less average grade, but has "the wall", which strava says is 14% for 65 feet of elevation, and might hit close to 20% briefly.
I'm older than you, weigh about the same, and have a lower NP & FTP. I'd climb it on either side, it would be a challenge, but it doesn't seem to be too much for me. And I can handle those short, very steep climbs, up to 18% -- if a portion is over 20%, then I might stall out.
That's the one, though I recall it being slightly longer. (With cycling, like fishing stories, memory tends to exaggerate the effort!)
I do really like my 34F-32R low gear. I can stay seated on a 10% grade, riding at a slow speed with a very low cadence, but just a moderate pedal pressure--not mashing the pedals. ( I do like to shift 2 gears harder and stand up occasionally, just to use different muscles.)
I was using a road triple with a 26-tooth low the second time. That's about 30 gear-inches. The 34x32 compact would be about 28 GI, nearly a 1:1 ratio. My present gearing yields a low of 34 GI. Most of my old steel bikes (which I dearly love) have old school gearing, the lowest being 39x28, or 37 GI. I can manage the local rollers with that combo, but not much more.
With the power meter to pace yourself, you could likely do it right now at around 160 watts for most of the climb, higher on the steeper parts. You'd be working hard, but not close to maxed out. I like to see 3-second and 30-second average power while I'm climbing. It's surprisingly hard to keep an exact power goal, I have lots of fluctuation from one pedal stroke to the next. But the averages keep me from going too hard at the start.
2.1 miles, 7%, 160 watts is
about 5 mph, so around 25 minutes. That's a VAM (vertical meters per hour) around 600, a decent climbing rate for a longer climb. (strong riders are around 1000, KOMs might be 1400 or more.) Then, next time, you'll have a better idea of pacing, and can likely go harder. It's always easier for me to repeat a climb. ("burning a match" on the steepest parts is a good strategy for speeding up a climb. A rider can save a lot of time with a harder effort on the slow, steep parts. it's more effective than a hard effort on the shallow grades.)For comparison:
Locally, during an hour ride last week, I tried for a personal best on one of the local climbs. It's 1.0 mile, 310 feet, 6% avg. I recorded 208 watts for 6:58 elapsed time, 8.4 mph, 810 VAM. At the top, I had nothing left, and would do a longer climb (or a climb on a longer ride) at a considerably lower power. I was aiming for 200w during the climb, and kept within +-30w of that most of the time, then a harder effort for the last 30 seconds. My 7 minute effort matched your 20 minute effort. I couldn't hold that for 20 minutes.
Based on what I can recollect from the previous rides, I was pushing about 6-7 mph on the climb each time. A calculation of power based on my weight and that of the bike, at the time, puts me at 197 watts for 6 mph. It would take about 25 minutes to climb 2.5 miles, according to the calculator. That seems about right, time-wise, as I recall it being close to a half hour. It's no wonder my quads gave out! One thing that hurt me on the second ride was turning back to check on my ride partner, about halfway up the climb, as I had dropped him. Had I not done that, perhaps I would have reached the summit.