Try some daft low gears to make it easier. I ride in the Malverns now and again and know how steep it is. But that means the DH's are also steep, no point in pedalling down them. So fit the smallest front ring and largest cassette on the rear.
Used to not mind hills at all (and even enjoy pushing myself up them) but my fitness is pretty low just now and I can see how easy it would be to get lazy and slide, which at 51 I don't want to let happen.
Burnside - yes that’s one I do from time to time, almost to the letter. Agree the switchbacks are more fun but I jump on by the comms mast rather than Happy Valley. Whole loop takes about 1hr 30 on a good day. I need some good days!
Now - up Church St - most the way up Happy Valley then left to the Worcs Beacon is about the most direct route from town, but that is arguably masochistic.
Am thinking the commons and lane bimbling are still the way to go until I drop some weight and try get some healing core-strengthening done. Maybe some walking on the hills. I’ll be back! Cynic-al - too right. Am a year or two older and feel the same way.
Hi Steve good to know you’re still at it! 30 mins climb
Hi 👋
I wish...
Why don't you get an e-bike malvern rider? You could spend years trying to get over / ride around a serious injury (guessing lower abs means a hernia of some sort?) and end up just not riding much, or swerving the hills like you've been doing.
We'd give you a wake, send you off in style - most of us will face the great e-divider at some point.
Need a bit of a climb to clear my lungs out. The alternative to living in a hilly area is much worse.
Going uphill's fine. Trying to keep up with younger mates who race and train, somewhat less so.
Pretty much what Superficial says. I’m W. Sheffield and have a choice of climbs from the front door, all of which end up being (from memory) about 350m of vert
Ilkley, same (okay 300 unless I want to go to a trig pt). Just start in a low gear for a slow warm up. And it does take me time to warm up these days (gulp, late 50s). My roadbike times on hills from the door are all slow compared to ones further out in the dales as I'm only ever on them cold.
Now live in a hilly area. Legs are always toast.
Have an ebike coming.
A chilled out 20km loop of fun trails is 750m. If we ride everything it can be 3 times that climbing in 40km.
Literally cant wait for it, will still pedal the analogue bike, but when i'm wrecked, I can still go out and have fun.
wouldn't see the point of a MTB in a non hilly area. i ride for the descents, do enjoy seeing how well i can do on a techy climb though as well.
can set of and be climbing for a couple of hours from the start( well 90% climbing and a bit of pushing) but the descent more than makes up for it.
vertually every ride will be 2000ft plus sometimes in as little as 10/12 miles.
thats in the lakes.
I only ride park. No issue.
But on the map the actual hill is only 200m of climbing so I don’t know where the other 200m comes in. Is that height data accurate?
I’d say 30mins for those stats would be good going, most would go slower than that I guess. It’d be much easier if you rode along the road and up Beacon Road rather than going directly across all the contours.
Thanks for the feedback. It helps! Yeah I go along Beacon Road 😬 and still slow! I solved yr height data query. You’re almost right. I was being an idiot - Worcs Beacon is of course 425m above sea level, not 425m above my house 🤣. I’m beginning the climb at about 80 metres asl. So approx 335m climb over 5k with an average 6.7% slope rising to over 10% for the last section (or much steeper when I skirt the quarry and climb Midsummer Hill)
It’s not heroic at all, point being finding it a dull grind as a regular ride from the off/difficult when injured and so is disincentivizing. I used climbbybike.com to generate the new data. It’s free to use if anyone fancies creating some climbs.
https://www.climbbybike.com/climb/Gt-Malvern-Station-to-Worcestershire-Beacon-easy/21427
I live at the foot of the Malverns but it is the crowds of red socks or litter dropping numptees that put me off climbing to the top. Sometimes I even prefer the the road bike!
Usually I could be confident of a quiet ride on a week day but, alas, in these crazy times even the Ledbury end is constantly busy.
^
-No walkers after dark
-Very few at 5-6am, mostly runners and the odd hound-enthusiast
To be honest it’s pretty clear at dinner hour ie 6-7pm ish except for main weekends of summertime (Whatever that means nowadays)
Why don’t you get an e-bike malvern rider? You could spend years trying to get over / ride around a serious injury (guessing lower abs means a hernia of some sort?)
ebike financially out of the question at the minute with it would definitely consider if/when things look up but still at bottom of household list if/when.
Yeah injury is ‘more complicated‘ than hernia according to specialists. Which I think was shorthand for ‘very expensive to fix, not offered on NHS’. So advice was to ‘completely rest it and not overdo it’ whatever that means.
Had to get a chest freezer from back of car a month back and popped it again with much swearing. Such a reoccurrence always then affects my cycling (specifically climbing, especially in saddle) and then if I start riding too much too soon it tears again. Have had to lower seatpost an inch from normal otherwise it just reinjures even on the flat. So it’s like a perpetual nightmare. Am convinced I can one day limit/protect it a good deal by stretching and core-strengthening so need to get on youtube and have a look.
As someone else who lives somewhere with low rolling hills, this thread has been a bit of an eye opener for the flipside of bigger hills. Makes me feel a bit better about our 200m "peaks", so thanks for that 🙂
We moved from the flat lands of East Anglia to West Yorkshire specifically for the hills, work was secondary.
I relish the climbs because I know a descent of awesomeness awaits and I remind myself of how boring it was riding around the flat paths.
Get an ebike as others have said.
tjagain
Hills are just a necessary evil to get descents
Whereas to me descents are a necessary evil if you like hills.
The top of a hill is where the magic is. 🙂
The only way to avoid climbs round here is towpath bashing, which is abit boring TBH. Usually get between 1.5-2k ft of climbing into a normal shortish ride, much more if I head over Hebden way. I find climbing rewarding, not only for the descents but for the views/the sense of achievement at clearing a good old lungbuster.
If I lived somewhere with propr hills I’d definitely consider an ebike, especially for getting out for an hour or 2 and it not being a single climb and descent.
Don't understand this.... How about doing two or three shorter climbs and therefore two or three descents?
My riding is pretty much 100% alpine. Yes, we can climb 1000hm for two hours or we climb halfway and take in two descents.... Although we generally climb for 1000hm and take about three hours because we stop to admire the view, get a stone out your shoe, take a piss we're old and unfit.
Personally I prefer a long slog up as it means I get a nice long dh. Plus, I'm usually a sweaty mess regardless of whether I'm at the top of the climb or the bottom of the hill.
We tend to try and park where the trail ends rather than where the climb starts to get a bit of a warm up before hitting the climb and saves on a slog back to the van. Also has the added bonus of being able to quaff an Augustiner sooner.
Yep, pretty brutal where we are. Either get the choice of parking at the bottom and facing a long 20 - 30 min steep climb off the bat, but finishing with a cracking descent, or parking at the top but finishing with the brutal climb. My rides usually consist of climbing for 15 mins or so, then a 2 - 3 minute descent, repeat for as long as we can. Great fun but alot of work on the climbs and the climb to descent ratio is crap. sometimes covering about 8 - 12 miles with 1800ft or more ascent. You certainly know you've been out by the time you're done. My next bike will be an ebike!
22x34/36 - triple? Still current? Good for going up and an old fashioned 42/44 x 11 for going down....
So fit the smallest front ring and largest cassette on the rear.
You’d think that would be the answer but...I can’t really climb ATM when seated, so if almost spinning out in grannymode when standing it becomes a real chore climbing 1000ft from the off. Weirdly (or maybe not so weird) I had more luck on the single-speed, combining bodyweight and bar-hauling to crank the pedals over the top, taking it slowly (currently 32/16), getting off and walking up the mad bits such as The Dingle. Maybe get that SS back up and running. A plan.
Choose the less steep routes up and take in more of the side paths through the trees. I rarely just go up to the tops unless I'm using it for access to another part of the hills or I want to have a look at the view.
I would say Singlespeed is the wrong choice for malvern, I keep thinking about building one up again but then I look at gearing and it just wouldn't work for me.
We used to live at the bottom of Peachfield Common, now on the side that gets sunsets.
A lot of my local routes start with an initial climb of about 150-200m over about 4km, starting straight from the door with roughly a 50:50 split between tarmac and off-road (with an average of 4% gradient but with some bits into double figures). It's never much fun doing that with cold legs but the upside is that once it's finished that's the worst of the climbing done as it's about half of the total climbing on that route, and the rest is mostly pretty gradual.
I would say Singlespeed is the wrong choice for malvern, I keep thinking about building one up again but then I look at gearing and it just wouldn’t work for me.
I rode singlespeed in the Peak pretty much exclusively for a couple of years. It was less than optimal in terms of efficiency, but you did, eventually get used to it and it created some interesting new challenges.
To be fair, despite my earlier hard line on climbing, I do use the stuff around the Longdendale Valley as an easy day, mostly flat alternative to the local Peak hilly routes.
I'm Calderdale, bottom of the valley. Yes every ride starts with a climb but I tailor my rides to suit (ie, I use the easier drags up and out rather than going straight up the stuff I'd normally ride back down). Never thought about not being arsed - just get out and do it regardless.
Never thought about not being arsed – just get out and do it regardless.
^ Best attitude, agreed.
For anyone unfamiliar with Great Malvern/ride up to the Beacon and thinking about having a bash here’s a visual I cobbled together of the switchback route mentioned upthread.
The section at green line is the top end of Church Street (pictured below,in both directions)
[url= https://live.staticflickr.com/3785/10308336706_8f3b2e9b41_b.jp g" target="_blank">https://live.staticflickr.com/3785/10308336706_8f3b2e9b41_b.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/gGUVnd ]Church Street, Great Malvern[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/richardaldred/ ]Richard Aldred[/url], on Flickr
Church Street was home of the Malvern Fringe Festival’s ‘Sir Edward Elgar Bicycle Challenge’ - a fun time-trial hillrace that ran circa 2006-200? Both the festival and the race vanished (pressure from local grumps) and town has been dead since (until last year new Pride Festival 👍🏼 ) Could also do with some new cycling-events though, IMO.
As can see, the approach is quite unremarkable compared to the hills above, but can still be a slog if you’ve come up from the Severn Valley
If you fancy having a bash I’d recommend arriving by train and doing it from the Great Malvern Station (or by car then park up at bottom of Peachfield Common by the railway, ride straight up the Common, then switchback lanes and trails to St Annes Well-North Hill)
