Originally Posted by
GhostRider62
Unless one has a team car at the top of l'Alpe d'Huez, one returns to the same spot on most ride. Net gain is always zero for mere mortals.
She is giving us a very hard set of numbers. 4100 feet in 13 miles is difficult. This is a simple way to look at caloric expenditures, only an attorney would need a calculator. Unless this route is a climb up and then descent, I would like to see those roads. Nonetheless, it does not matter WRT energy used. Why would you make a distinction that has no meaning.
26 miles with 4100 feet of ascent, irrespective of how distributed, will add a distance equivalent to 20-30 miles making this ride feel more like a 50-55 miler in more typical terrain. There are a few places I can think of where a Century could potentially have 16,000 of ascent, but not many.
Yes, we agree that most rides net zero elevation. Do you think you're correcting me on that point? OP explicitly said these were round trips which by definition have to gain zero. I said that.
The question concerned average grade. I don't think average grade is a very meaningful number, and none of what you say there refutes that. I never implied that 4100 feet of ascent was a small amount of climbing, but by your logic, it's the same amount of work whether it's spread out over 26 miles or 10 miles or a century so what does the average grade mean? I stated clearly "you're doing great", did I really need to spell out that that means I understand that OP is doing a lot of climbing? If anything, I'm saying the average grade statistic is understating how hard she is riding.
I think it's hilarious that you don't think it matters whether the climbing is at a steady 2.5% or is confined to a couple of climbs at 13% grade simply because it's the same energy being expended (not sure that's actually true, btw, I'll leave that to a physicist) as it certainly affects the odds you're going to "die" on a hill during the ride.
She asked how to calculate it, I showed there was a calculator, why the "only an attorney" cheap shot? Other people showed her the math, do you think only attorneys automate the math?
BTW, if you're bolding my implied question, maybe you should have answered it instead of attacking me for saying a bunch of stuff I didn't say. Why did people divide the round trip mileage in 2? That seems wrong to me, but I'm open to being convinced otherwise.