Originally Posted by
cyccommute
We in Colorado look down on you guys, literally, and laugh at your “mountains”. The lowest point in my state…3,317 feet…is higher than the highest point in a lot of states. I will say that your hills have attitude where my mountains altitude. Your road planners look at your tree covered hills and say “go thataway!” and bulldoze a straight road up and down whatever lumps are around. Our road planners look at our bare hills and say “no way are we going up that!!”
I need my ridiculous gearing in the east because I run out of muscle power. I use it here in the west because I run out of air.
Many of the roads around me originated with farm trails (sheep, goat, cow...) well pre-dating motorized transport/DOT specs, etc. Often it ain't so much the overall elevation change as it is the grade. A quarter or half mile climb at 10-13%....ooooof! And the problem is that the descents on so many of the hills on my routes are equally short and steep (usually with a bad/sandy road surface and a hard bend or stop sign at the bottom..) which diminishes the reward of having made the climb! The newer designed roads in the West seem a bit more forgiving to me, in spite of greater elevation changes. But I actually love the challenge of the terrain here. A bucket-list trip is to do some touring in the Pyrenees someday...
& I agree re: "mountains"- I get a laugh when I hear folks around here refer to themselves as 'mountain people' and down-staters as 'flat-landers'. Uh, ever seen the Alps, or the Rockies, or the Sierra Nevadas? The Catskills are hills. Big hills, often steep, and beautiful, but.....
hills. ;-)