An interesting competition with my son
 

He's in Colorado, I'm in France so this is your basic long distance competition that came about by chance. This spring he did a fine ride with a friend of his that included just over 4000 ft of climbing. A bit later I thought I'd see if I could match that or maybe even surpass it by a few hundred feet but ended up tacking another 2700 feet on to his number. Which I have to admit made me rather happy. Naturally he responded and bagged 7880 ft. Okay, the match was on. Some time later I rolled out on my birthday, a day I always enjoy riding on as I'm usually quite strong that day, and thus celebrated turning 64 with a fine ride that raised the vertical bar to almost 8700 ft. To be honest I figured that would be about the end of the game for me for awhile, especially after he came back with 9300 ft! But after a bit of time I had this ride in mind that I'd wanted to do for awhile that might just be able to raise the bar once again. Et voila, I did it, though admittedly rather slowly at the end with numerous stops due to lots of sustained double digit grades, including a long section that averages 16%, plus the fact that by then I'd already done a lot of km plus way more grades over 10% than I'd expected to hit. Anyway at the end I was looking at 12000 ft of climbing and around 85 km of distance. That made me downright ecstatic.
My son is still figuring out how he can respond to that one. I should add that I have a huge advantage over him because of where I live, in the Alps where there's an all but limitless supply of excellent roads with lots of vertical. His choices in Colorado are vastly more limited and as he's like me in the sense that he's not interested in simply repeating roads to accumulate the numbers, coming up with a route that will surpass 12000 ft isn't easy. But then again he's 37 years younger so I have no doubt at all that soon enough he'll post some numbers to which I will be unable to respond. Unless I can get in enough training to get stronger and then slip off down south and bag a Ventoux triple which would tack another 2100 ft or so onto my max!
Anyway a rather fun competition with my son that rather nicely manages to bridge the distance between Boulder and Grenoble.

You guys are animals

Ya got more desire than I do...to make the muscles work. Exercize, yes but there are limits.

I have to ask........where can you find 12000 ft of climbing in only 85km or about 50 miles......and how long does that take? Did someone pick you put at the end of the 85km/12000 ft?

The Alps must certainly be different than anything I've ever ridden!!

12,000 feet of climbing and 12,000 feet of altitude are completely different.

In Colorado, it's impossible, starting off at 5,000 feet, and finishing near 14,000.......

It's pretty easy actually. Even better, the ride started and ended at my house with long, fast descents on both ends. I live in a village part way up to a col so the start was a drop into the valley below, along the valley for a bit, then up. That first up bagged some 4000+ ft of gain in about 12-13 miles. The altitude is gained fast due to lots of steep grades, steep as in anything above 8%. The second part of that first climb had a lots of double digit grades, up to about 14% apparently. How long did it take? I'm not sure because I stop frequently to take shots then there was a good break for lunch in a restaurant near the 5th col plus some breaks to chat with some riders I hooked up with for part of the jaunt. Good part of the day at any rate. I left the house at around 6 in the morning, got back late afternoon.

Unbelievable! I just want to get to the point where I can climb decently at your same age! You're wise to joust with a statistic that's not dependent on pace. Are you both using identical cyclometers/gps or do you have a technology advantage?

The distance I wrote was miles, not kilometers as I typed, therefore 85 miles. I'm used to using metric and sometimes forget when I convert into feet/miles. Actually I like putting the vertical in feet since the numbers are so much bigger and the distances in kilometers for the same reason.

It's my son with all the technology. Me, I don't even ride with a watch much less a gps or cyclometer. I then map out what I did using maymyride if I want to know the verticals or ridewithgps if I just want the distance (which I then have to convert to metric since they only work with the dead king's appendages. I also check the verticals that mapmyride comes up with against info from the 'Atlas des Cols' books I have plus from this site : http://ciclismo.sitiasp.it/motore.aspx?da=az just to verify if the figures from mapmyride are looking solid. Mapmyride has become much better than it used to be for verticals while ridewithgps and the other sites I've used are totally whacky for verticals.
Your comment on pace is one reason why I enjoy this long distance competition with my son so much. I just go at whatever speed I can generate with no pressure whatsoever to keep up with anyone. And by the end of that ride my pace was way slow. Had to stop a number of times during the last climb to the col above my house. Even had to stop twice during the km that averages close to 13% with a long section at 16%; once at the bottom and once about half way up. Usually I can ride that climb non-stop but not this time. And the last 2+ km that average around 10% were a total grind with me wishing with every stroke that I had a 34/27 or even a 34/29 for my low gear instead of the 34/25.
On the other hand I was grinning from ear to ear even if it was only inside my head because I knew this ride was going to blow my son's socks off. Also because from the col back to my house was nothing but downhill (well, just a slight uphill into the village) and a fast one. Somebody in a car followed me down and was racing to clock me and when I got to the intersection to turn left to my village, this guy pulled up alongside and asked me if I knew how fast I'd been going. Which I didn't of course since I have nothing to tell me my speed. Apparently he was impressed as I was hitting over 80 kph on the straights and not all that much slower through lots of the turns. Great way to finish up a fine ride.

Last year I had about 3700 miles with a total of about 25,000 feet. I suppose I could get velotel's numbers by going up and down the highway overpass about a million times.