Originally Posted by
Monique
It's on the paved road so it's not as good. The "flat part" allows about a 5 minute break, perfect, but is still uphill. Not totally flat.
It's really only 6.5 miles up the hill, then we coast on the entire way home.
There is a short cut, a dirt road we used to ride up adjacent the fire house. It's a much steeper grade but we'd get home quicker if we were short on time
Even that quickie ride cut my depression by 50%
"BTW, my belief is that the longer the distance, the less useful the average grade is as a statistic"
I totally agree with this ^^
Don't get me wrong, I still think that much climbing is great whether road or dirt. I'm a roadie myself. I was just wondering if you weren't making it harder on yourself by riding nobs on road hills. Given that climbing is one of the conditions under which weight of the bike really matters, you're also doing a lot more work using the presumably heavier mountain bike rather than a road bike of some sort.
Seeing that, then your average grade would be distance climbed over 6.5 miles.
The other posters who calculated it that way were right. That's a big steep hill, you're going to get into great shape riding up it. Basically, you've got a very hard 6.5 miles, followed by a free ride home provided by gravity.