HTupolev

Many road bikes are geared inappropriately for their riders and terrain.

burnthesheep

Abe_Froman

Lol, well yea, I guess if somebody is trying to push a 42/21 combo up a mountain, it might not be the easiest thing .

Maelochs

Most folks I know like to go FAST in groups …. And even the guys who can hang on the flat split up on the climbs. We have a couple big guys (I only say “fat guys” when speaking about myself) who are Really fit and really fast on the flat …. But someone who carried 80 lbs less weight is still going to be dropping them by the time the last hills roll around.

Yeah, that’s funny. If you like climbing, power to you … but if you think it is easy to ride at 40 mph solo on the road, go win the world TT championship.

And no, I am not suggesting that any local groups ride that fast … but the idea that riding on the flat is easy is actually the idea that some riders are lazy.

And Pro Tip: you can swap in different cranks, or in many cases, just different chain rings. Yea, you have to readjust the front derailleur … but once you get the necessary degrees in Rocket Science and Brain Surgery ….

I don’t mind going fast in a paceline---it has its own appeal. But climbing is lonely---unless someone faster decides to ride along and offer encouragement.

I don’t mind climbing alone, either … but it isn’t really a “group ride” at that point.

In 2015 i did a cross-country tour and coming from west to east in Kansas was a revelation.

First, i had pictured it as part of the plains. Second, i had no idea about the wind. There were some hard, hard miles there.

caloso

Hills means regrouping. The skinny climbers don't like sitting around waiting and the fat roleurs don't like being waited for.

HTupolev

I'm not just referring to vintage stuff, or mountains.

Take someone with an FTP of 3W/kg: an unimpressive number in a racing-oriented discussion, but not low if we're discussing cyclists in general. Stick them on a typical modern road bike with 700x25 tires and a 34-28 low gear. Put them at the bottom of an 8% hill, steep but not outside of the bounds of reason (and lots of non-8% hills have 8% stretches).
They'll be doing around 70rpm at threshold. That's not a situation that'll force this rider off the bike to walk, but they won't really have an option for taking the hill restfully either.

burnthesheep

I also had an idea of almost a kind of weekly "dirty dozen" hill kind of ride. Chill in between the hills going slow. Then hammer your hill. Or skip the hill and wait at the bottom. Whatever.

Maybe not 13 hills to go up each week, but several. Talk and ride easy between each one and have everyone bite off what they want to chew on the hills. Or not do a hill and take a skip and watch others take a stab at it.

Then grab some snacks and a beer afterwards.

Bomb Komodo

Jon T

Because of age and health conditions. 40-50 years ago the terrain mattered a whole lot less.
Jon

Seattle Forrest

You can ride as hard as you want on the flat, but you can ease up, too. A lot of people will coast from time to time without realizing it. You can't do that going up a hill, hills keep you honest. Also, 50 rpm in 39x25 is unnecessarily fatiguing, but that's as low as a lot of road bikes go. You don't have to take hills at race pace, but there's only so much you can slow down before you fall over.

Hurricane Ridge Road goes from 0' to 5,240' over the course of 17 miles. What would be the flat ground equivalent?

Dan333SP

I'd say 34/28 is a far more common low gear than 39/25 for at least the last decade. I'd wager the majority of regularly ridden road bikes these days have compact gearing. Your point stands, though. Regardless of gearing, you have no choice but to HTFU on anything over 5-6%.

HTupolev

I wouldn't say it's regardless of gearing at all. Gearing has a huge influence on what grades you can choose to low-effort on.

kbarch

I don't know that I've ever seen a group remain a fully cohesive group over the course of a mile-plus climb of 6% or more. One or two re-groups are tolerable, but beyond that, rides with a lot of elevation become sort of antithetical to the notion of group riding - unless that's the whole point. Sometimes you can get a handful of folks to join you for a "climb-a-thon." Set one up - you might find more interest than you expected, especially if its understood to be somewhat social.

Carbonfiberboy 

That's just what we do here in the PNW. Groups always shatter on the climbs, but then folks softpedal or wait at intersections for the regoup. It's no big deal. If your area has some elevation gain possibilities, it seems to me that it's up the ride leader(s) to create routes embracing same. I've done 100'/mile routes. They're not suitable for 99% of club riders and besides, they're not really good training, having too little recovery between climbs to allow one to go hard enough to have a strong training effect.

friday1970

As someone living in SE Michigan, we have some rolling terrain at best, where two old glaciers bumped up against each other and dumped some dirt (Hillsdale to Pontiac). But otherwise, it's mostly flat. So it is nice to have some long climbs as a change of pace, though I do them solo.
I've done 4 climbs so far (Whiteface, Roan Mtn, Gatlinsburg to Clingmans, and Mt Mitchell), and I have to admit. At a nice pace, it's relaxing with fantastic views along the way. And the way back down is simply something than cannot be matched here in Michigan.

But to the OP, I can imagine it's probably both about keeping the group together and seeing average speeds.

burnthesheep

I got no takers for the ride last night. Only 2300ft in 28 miles. Not that bad at all. There were a few miles of flatter rolling between the hills.

I'm waiting to repair the carbon roadie, so was on the CX bike with an easiest case of a 40t and 28t in the back. Avg cadence with 40/28 being easiest was still 88 rpm with some grinding and soft pedaling downhill. So it couldn't have been that difficult of a route.

DrIsotope

I live at the base of Mt. San Gorgonio, the highest peak in Southern California. Riding from my driveway, it's 44 miles to Onyx summit, gaining almost 8,900ft of elevation. So 202ft/mi.

If I don't take the turn at HWY38, I can continue up Valley of the Falls drive, ending at the Vivian Creek Trailhead. 21 miles, 4,700ft. 224ft/mi.

And I will do a ride like that maybe once a month. Because for me, going real fast on flat ground is... fun. Out-and-back on the northern end of the Santa Ana river trail-- 50 miles, 1,000 feet of elevation change (200 on the way out, 800 on the way back.) An easy to figure 20ft/mi.

Seattle Forrest

Also, long climbs can be hard to dress for. When I did Slate Peak last year, it was t-shirt weather at the bottom of the ride, sunny and 65 F, but there was rhime (ice) covering the trees at the top.

jamesdak 

LOL, an exaggeration but yeah, we do have our hills out here. My after work ride is a out and back of around 27 miles with only around 380 feet ascending so....

But yeah I have an HC category climb that starts 1/2 mile from the house, Cat 1 about 10 miles away and two Cat 2 climbs closer than that.

But I like speed and putting in the miles to answer the OP. Climbing is just a different kind of workout.

jamesdak 

LOL, I'm still dealing with an inner quad problem from an 8 mile Cat 2 climb riding my Opus III up it with a 42/22 combo. And I didn't use the 22, only the 19 keeping the 22 as a bailout. Thanks for reminding me of my stupidity.




Most climbs since then this summer I've opting for the Lemond with it's triple and a 30T small ring. Feels almost like cheating, LOL!

kbarch

Sorry no takers, but midweek it's not surprising. I think it's clear that climbs are not a good way to bring people together. However, I'm pretty sure you're not the only one who enjoys them the way you do.

I've known little groups to get together to do repeats of shorter climbs, which is kind of ideal. Falling back and riding off the front aren't an issue. The most enthusiastic climbers might make a couple more passes than those who take a more leisurely approach or struggle more, but everyone will see each other here and there along the way. I think that kind of thing is key for climb-y group rides - knowing that the point isn't so much to ride together in a pace line, but just to be out there doing the same thing, together at the beginning and the end, and occasionally in the middle when conversation might actually be convenient (trying to carry on a conversation in a pace line is not such a great idea)

Speaking of hill repeats, the last time I rode with friends on a ride that netted more than 100'/mile was when I and a few others sort of visited a couple of other guys who were attempting an Alpine Repeat century (Alpine being a climb on a park road which, depending on where you start and end the measurements, is about a mile long and about 6.5%). Only one guy did the full 100 miles, and there were certainly a lot of other riders on the hill over the course of that marathon, but he was joined by at least half a dozen friends for parts of it (I only did the climb a dozen times).

Tycho Brahe 

I would give up cycling if I could not do any climbing.

jeffreythree

Not much climbing around these parts other than some rollers and short steep rises, but when I want to climb a bit more I just turn on elevation correction. Strava adds a solid 20-30 feet per mile to my Garmin's numbers. The local clubs don't visit the roads I ride very much sticking to the flatter, blander roads to the east.

DrIsotope

I've gotten to where I'm just using elevation correction every ride. Did a ride with the wife this morning, she had about 685ft, I had 600ft. Elevation correction took me to 700ft.

My GPS units consistently under-report by at least 10%. Some rides correction adds as much as 25%-- the worst days are when I ride a route I've done a dozen times, and know exactly how much climbing I've done, and the GPS shows 500 or 600 feet less than the last time I did it.

So even if Strava is generous, at least it's consistent.