nickthaquick1

whatap guyy. i'm training for thisbike ride..170 miles over two days from boston to the cape...the cape i heard is pretty hilly from other riders. theres a good hill near me ive been training on for the past year..its 4 miles to the top..with 420 feet of climbing along the way....is this a "good size climb" i should be expecting on my ride this summer? ideally id like to train on something that is huge and when i get to my real race i think of the hills as speedbumps along my ride...is 100 feet/mile for 4 miles a respectable training ground?

to train i time myself at the bottom and race the clock up..last year my best time was 9min 10 sec...i just got home today with a time of 8min 33sec, and its only APRIL! i can hardly type right now tho...def got that cyclist high going.. still got my gear on, sweating my ass off...God cycling is the best!

kimconyc

That's a pretty long climb. Rise/run makes that climb approximately a 2% average gradient (assuming it's a steady incline). I don't know about you but I would be more focused on stamina first before focusing on how fast I could climb because 170 is a pretty lengthy ride.

Congrats on getting faster.

edit: If this ride is like next week and you don't have a good base, it's going to be hard regardless. Good luck!

bdcheung

That's not a climb. It's a false flat.

Busta Quad

Uh, no. That's not even a 2% grade; I suck at climbing and even I wouldn't call that a hill. A good climb would be more in the range of 500 ft / mile.


On the other hand, 8 and a half minutes over 4 miles is almost 30 MPH on a 2% grade, which is fairly impressive. So, we have a few options here:

1. Your distance is wrong

2. Your clock is wrong

3. You are a very strong/talented rider

4. You are full of shait


I'll leave it to others to figure this out.

dark13star

Where is this climbing between Boston and Cape Cod? Riding out the cape is definitely not climbing, but there may be some moderate hills on the way south. Nothing big though.

Cyclist01012

I used to live on the cape just out side of Sandwich, Where are thease hill you speak of?

buzzman

I wouldn't worry about the hills. Just train for time on the bike and distance- get used to that and you'll be fine.

100' per mile is not much of a hill but measuring hills and elevation gains at this point could be counterproductive. Concentrating too much on the hills or anticipating a hill climb is often discouraging mentally.

There is actually one set of hills on the Cape that, unfortunately, come just before you reach your final destination. They are between Wellfleet and North Truro and depending on which way the wind is blowing and how tired you are at that point they can be quite tough. You'll be able to see the tower in Provincetown when you reach the top and that can be exhilarating and give you an energy boost to see you through to the end.

I recommend you get plenty of fluids on this ride and as you leave Wellfleet make sure your bottles are full. The wind and the sun on the Cape can dehydrate a cyclist rapidly and those hills come in a fairly remote location. I would imagine they have a bad reputation because cyclists are tired and dehydrated when they get to that point and don't expect any climbs of any significance because they are on Cape Cod. But, in reality, they are pretty modest hill climbs gaining an elevation of about 150' in about 1/3 of a mile.

Once you're past those hills it's clear sailing all the way into PTown. Have a great ride!

johnny99

100 feet/mile is hilly for a long loop ride (e.g., 10000 feet of climbing in a 100 mile day ride).

100 feet/mile for only the uphills is hardly anything. Even a freeway overpass is usually steeper than that. Around here, the easy hills are around 1500 feet in 4 miles.

StephenH

Hills are pretty subjective. Around here, it seems the average hill is maybe 100' high, so a 200' high hill is "big". Then riding a single speed, a long gradual slope is no problem, but a short steep slope is, so for me, it's the slope more than the total climb that matters.

The major mountain passes in Colordado generally had 7-8% maximum slopes, but those slopes could go on for several miles. I never rode a bike out there, but when you start talking to cyclists from those areas, their idea of "hilly" is going to be a lot different from yours or mine.

Jakedatc

+1.. worry about being able to do 170 in 2 days.. maybe work on doing 50's then 60's the next week... etc

i did a 62mi ride last summer from bourne.. around woods hole and back to bourne through mashpee... no major hills.. a few short 1/4mi things but nothing devastating. windy as hell though..

mooxster

The OP is refering to the MS ride in July IIRC.

Like others have said...where are the hills?

8:33? you should be training for an elite time on Mt Washington

buzzman

the hills are between Wellfleet and North Truro. I'm used to hills- my home in Western MA is accessible only by climbing a one mile stretch that has an elevation gain of about 675' (an average of 8% with sections of 17-18%) and I've done a lot of climbing on tours and in races. I do the ride from Boston to Provincetown at least once or twice per summer and depending on the wind those hills can get the best of me. They're not brutal and, as I said in a previous post, they may only be about a 150' elevation gain in somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 a mile but they do sneak up on you at the end of a long two day ride in the case of the MS Ride.

tosterbe

Last summer I spent time in Bourne and took a 50 mile loop to Wood Hole and back. AccideThe funny thing was that the altimeter never registered more than 50 feet but the total climbing for the day was right at 2000ft. My normal rides generally have longer sustained climbs and not a bunch of short tiny rollers.

Somehow made a wrong turn and ended up on 28 for a couple of miles. Not exactly fun. I'll never forget the exit I took: Sippewissett.

Also, if you end up on the Cape, Corner Cycle in Falmouth rents road bikes.

merlinextraligh

100 feet a mile = North Florida.

Seriously the bridges and sand dunes on my Saturday moring ride are steeper than that.

peterot

hardly even that.

Busta Quad

Give the guy a break; he does climb them at 30 mph.

mkadam68

I dunno... while 100ft/mile really is no big deal (1%?), it depends on how fast you're going up them. Rose Bowl Ride in Pasadena: 100ft rise for 1 mile @ 27-28mph ='s hurt! At least for this clyde-racer! (I can hang when it's only 24mph )

Busta Quad

1.8 %

Shimagnolo

+1
My idea of "flat" is any ride that does not exceed 5%.
6-12% are the climbing rides.
The last 1.5 miles at the top of Flagstaff Mt *averages* 15%.

Val23708

Just rode Bonny Doon today.. 4.5 miles long, 1600ft of climbing. that is a "good" climb

DScott

Yes, that's climbing!

Did Decker Cyn. today (5.2 miles, 1,650ft climbing, average grade 6.7%, max. grade 17%) in the middle of a 44 mile ride with 5400 ft. total climbing. That hurts!

Oh, and I was NOT going 30mph up the hill...

nickthaquick1

alright, ill have to re-do my ride and figure the exact numbers out. but there are dips in the climb...maybe a spot or two of about 2 tenths of a mile where it goes downward...I usually stand up and hammer the entire length, with specific points where i stop and catch my breath. My HRM said i sustained 190, and stayed in the upper 170's for the entire trip. I def. didnt do it @ 30mph tho...i think i kept it at 15-16, which impressed myself...idk about you pro's out there on bikeforums.com

if you can tell from a map what the grade is its in quincy/braintree, ma...the road is called chickatawbut (spelling?)

asgelle

Can you cite even one ride of any meaningful length that averages 5% (i.e., total climbing divided by total distance)?

bdcheung

you ride this road but don't know how to spell it?

https://www.mountainzone.com/mountain...sp?fid=7524056

There's your hill.

daintonj

I spend most of my time riding roads where I don't even know the name, there's a good chance they might not even have a name. Spelling it would be a real bonus. It's great out in the countryside.