I live in a hilly area, so I want to know which of these two climbs would be less horrible to get back to my house. I've mapped them both with Elevation on Google maps

Option 1: Elevation rises 315 feet over the course of .5 miles. (12% grade, I think) Time: UNKNOWN.

Option 2: Elevation rises 423 feet over the course of 2 miles. (4% grade, I think) Time: Takes me about 20 minutes


I have taken option 2 a few times, but really don't like it. I'm scared of option 1, but would it be worth it for the much shorter distance, or would the 12% grade likely kill me before I got half-way up? (You can judge my fitness based on the fact that the other hill took me 20 minutes, though I was trying to conserve energy the whole time, not pushing it.)

Thanks,
-Andy

I say give them both a shot, see which one you like better. At my current fitness I'd take the longer route, but when I weigh less I would probably consider the shorter.

Depends if you like to be killed slowly or quickly. For me the lesser of the two evils is option 2. But if you have proper gearing option 1 might be easier.

At my age I wouldn't think #1 would be optional (but I would probably give it a try). I expect that you will develop a favorite option and then do it mostly, but occasionally do others on whatever whim takes hold of you that day.

I'd gear my bike low enough so I could make it up route 1 without walking, and then alternate between the two.

Even if you have trouble at first, you will eventually be strong enough to ride the steep .5 mile. Especially with the proper gears.

It's easier to climb by using your weight to an advantage, by simply standing, in as high a gear as you can use.

Thanks for the replies...I actually don't do either regularly, I live on one side of a "u" shaped cliff area overlooking a downtown area at the bottom down by the river. I live and work up top, so I can ride around the top of the uptown part 8 miles to get to work...So I hardly ever ride my bike down the hill, because I know I will have to come back up...using one of these 2 options.

However, the bike shop is down town, so if I want to go there, I usually drive there. And the nice scenic river ride is down there, so I suppose I just need to man up and do the hills more often.

(I should be able to do it, I'm 34, 160 lbs, and fit enough to play basketball for 2 hours without feeling it too much...im just a hill climbing wimp).

My home is 450 feet above my office. Most of my routes home are 9 miles, one, which is less safe is 7 miles. On the way in to work the 9 mile routes take about 40 minutes, and the 7 mile route takes about 30 minutes. On the way home however, they take about the same time, about 48 minutes because I am slogging up longer inclines on the shorter route. The are a couple of short steep hills on my longer rides home, with more flat sections which I like. So my preference would be the shorter steeper climb on your route, however, I'd mix it up for variety.

On my route home , I had a few Blocks that I'd get off and push , and get back on when the street leveled out a little more .

I now live much further down the hill, the town is built on..

Your weight is no advantage in that case as you have to lift it up every pedal stroke. It's good to use some different muscles occasionally but, for most people, standing up on a long hill is tougher than seated spinning provided you have sufficient gearing. Granted most riders don't have adequate gearing to spin up a 12% hill.

For the OP, if you're taking 20min to go up 400ft I think you'll find it much tougher on the 12% hill. Probably better to wait until you can get your time up the 400ft hill under 10min (about 770VAM) before tackling the 12% hill.,

I climb over 600' in a mile with some sections close to 15% on my way home from work every day on bikes that weigh over 40 lbs, not counting what I'm carrying besides that.
Honestly, my athletic ability is probably below average for a cycling enthusiast as I don't train and prefer to ride at a relaxed pace yet I can do it, and don't feel the need to take the longer, easier route. Like they say, "just do it".

If you can go slow and stay seated, a steep climb is usually doable. Once you have to stand to keep moving, it's much harder to maintain for very long. So reasonable grades with short, steep pitches can be handled by many riders. (The definition of "steep" depends on your riding fitness, and the lowest gears on your bike.)

I've done steep climbs at about 3 mph. It gets harder to stay balanced on the bike at those low speeds.

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I looked at Strava, and it appears you overestimated the grades. Strava or ridewithgps isn't always correct on grades, though. I've seen a climb with a short section of 21% grade that ridewithgps reported as 12% max.

Check out the climbs on Strava Segment Explore here. (It looks like you need a free account to login and see the climbs.)

Are these the choices:
Taylor Street 1.4 miles, 450 feet, and 6%. It reports a 30% part in the middle. That can't be correct. The GPS track veers off the road here, so it's probably due to bad satellite reception near the cliff side.

Or Autumnwood Lane is .7 miles and 350 feet, not .5 miles--which would steep! That would be difficult but doable for many of the riders I ride with.

I looked at this Autumnwood climb on ridewithgps.com. It shows 9% in the middle. But climbs angling up the side of a steep cliff are hard for these mapping sites to get correct. They have known elevations on the hillside, and have to estimate the exact elevation of the road surface. Just a few feet difference really changes the grade there.

I'd try these. You can always bail out and head back down if it's too much.

A Strava screen shot of Madison climbs:


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In Cincinnati, the Straight Street climb is .4 mile, 225 feet, 12%. Most cyclists avoid this hill and take an easier route to the top. But it's good for a challenge.

Rm-rf, thanks for the info...I've never used strava...but no, the hills in comparing are Dugan Hollow (4.5%). And Telegraph hill (11.2%)...so it looks like my estimates were close.

On a perhaps related note, my granny gear is 28/28.. 700x28mm tires, does that sound normal?

I used my easiest gear on Dugan Hollow, but I was able to basically spin (slowly), stay seated, and just keep going.

If that's where you're at for 4.5% then 11.2% is probably going to involve a lot of walking.

You have a triple front crankset, with a 28 small ring? That sounds great for your area.

The Dugan Hollow road looks really nice, a steady climb through the woods. We have to ride out of the city to get to nice climbs like this near Cincinnati. And it doesn't appear to have the usual "easy grade at the bottom and steepest grade at the top" like so many hills in Ohio and Indiana.

You'll get faster when climbing as you get more miles in. And I'm always faster on a hill that I know very well, so I can pace myself to the top.

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Hey, that's a steep climb up Telegraph Hill. And there's no recovery sections, it's all steep. I would try it occasionally (or once?) as a challenge, but normally avoid it. I'd have to do it all while standing, at a very slow cadence, which is hard on my lower back.

Telegraph Hill:

Yes, triple crank...28 small ring...

Thanks all...I think I may try the long hill a few more times to build endurance, then maybe try the steep hill after that...once it gets warmer...i don't think it would be any fun at freezing temperatures.

And I noticed you used the adjectives: "nice" , and "really nice" to describe the noun: "climb" ...so I'm a little confused by that, but otherwise, thanks!

What I've found since getting back into bicycling is that your attitude makes all the difference: if you dread hills, then you will be miserable riding them and no gear will be low enough. If you enjoy them, you will seek out climbs and in the process become good at them, thus increasing your enjoyment.

I'd take the short steep one. If worst came to worst, I could probably walk up that hill as fast as I could ride up the long one.

Don't be scared, just do it. I was facing similar options when I lived on the west coast near the beach, yet my college was up in the nearby foothills. I started taking the steepest route I could find (total elevation was around 800' over about 5 miles, with about 500' feet of that over 1.5 miles...ish) to get myself in shape. I bought a freewheel with a 28t granny gear and put on a 30t chainring in the front. I was riding old lugged steel with two loaded panniers. It sucked, but then I got used to it. As a plus, traffic was low on the steep roads.

Now, many years later, hills don't bother me at all. Am I Lance? Not even close, in fact I am an inefficient cyclist, but riding those coastal hills really set my tolerance thresholds much higher. I have a friend who races occasionally, and I used to really look up to him as an excellent rider. Now that I have waaaaayyy more monster hills under my belt than he does, I am confident that if we raced uphill, I could spank him something fierce.

Nike man. Just do it.