[Closed] what constitutes a 'hilly' ride?

100ft per mile of climbing is an undulating ride, 200ft per mile is hilly, 300ft per mile pretty demanding terrain. Roughly speaking.

WTF, 350m is almost flat isnt it?

My local 17mile TT loop has an ascent of 436m apparently, I did it in about 47minutes on friday, I did have a headwind on the way back though.

Are you sure you got your times/stats right?

So I barely scrape into undulating?

Or do you halve the distance for a loop as its effectively 6 miles of climbing and 6 miles of decending?

Must try harder 🙁

EDIT: bad maths by me..

IGMC

Local 2 hr training ride around devon:

Time:02:04:46
Distance:30.11 mi
Elevation Gain:856 m
Avg Moving Speed:15.0 mph

I don't think its just down to the total climbing it is also the gradients which get your legs surely?

I know the area quite well & I'd say it was very undulating, bordering on hilly

I dunno, the 17mile ons I do is a lap of coniston. I'd say its fairly flat or slightly undulating. Theres only really one climb in there but that only takes a couple of minutes I would have thought.

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If you need to get off and push, it's hilly.

If you feel sick, it's challenging.

If you need to use the inner ring on a triple, it's sporting.

If it takes you less than 10 minutes to get out of bed the next day, it's flat.

This only applies to fat, unfit 40 odd year olds with dodgy joints btw. 😀

sad to have tell thisisnotaspoon that with those stats you can proudly stand alongside me at the small mans urinals but i've never been a TT or club rider and would fall in super vet cat if were to indulge

davidtaylforth - there's surely nothing like 436 METRES of climbing on that graph - feet maybe....

I take it this was on the mtb, right?

davidtaylforth - there surely nothing like 436 METRES of climbing on that graph - feet maybe....

Dunno, thats what I thought but it said on the website "Total ascent: 436m"

I dont have a garmin or anything like that so I cant work it out for myself.

Righty, so I'm slow then 🙁

Might go out tonight and try again if it's dry, hopefully a bit more off the brakes on the downhills and pushing harder will bump up the average speed. The hills are a mix of 150m climbing in 2 miles on the longest one, and the steepest is about 80m climbing in 250m! The rest of the rides made up of undulations, and most of the downhills are too steep/twisty to really let off the brakes and recover some of the work put into climbing.

One where it takes TWO lifts to reach the top?

Rachel

I guess it depends on the steepness too. That loop I posted, none of the hills are really long or steep so you can just hammer them all out of the saddle in the big ring.

But

80m climbing in 250m!

Oddly, I found it the easiest of the lot! It's the climb up from the beech to Saltburn, the second corner is hard as you're going straight up the apex of the switchback and I didn't exactly sprint through Saltburn afterwards, but as actual climbing goes it's over before you really have time to get demoralised.

and the steepest is about 80m climbing in 250m!

This is your problem, and where you'll be losing all your time. I'd have to carry the bike on my back to climb up that, I'd need my hands free for the scramble.

Just done the maths - on your route you had 17m of climbing per km ridden. Big Thor's mountain stage win on Saturday had 25m of climbing per km ridden. Doesn't sound too bad in comparison does it (let's ignore the fact that he had 7.5 times further to go and averaged over 25mph over the stage!)?

IMO the way the climbing comes (short and sharp, long and gentle, lots of small climbs, one big one) and the terrain if off road make too much difference to do it all by numbers.

That hill is signed as a 1:4

Went out yesterday, did less than 10km with 800m of climbing in it. All in one go too!

Just looked at our maps, and bear in mind this is the South....Bedfordshire in fact. We avarage 2500' - 2700' on a normal 100km run. Average is 18.9mph
We have a few shorter 'hilly' routes with figures not worth mentioning that are far harder, and slower, and painfuller.

When I was still vaguely fit I used to use the trudos mountain in Cyprus as a training ground for road. 40km from the coast where we were to the top. The first 30km had 2000m climbing and 1000m decent to leave you at 1000m altitude. The last 10km was a steady 1000m ascent which took circa 50mins and hurt like hell. Reverse in return so 4000m climbing over the ride of 80km and back in time for breakie (too hot for later in the day).

I wish I was that fit now. 😥

We avarage 2500' - 2700' on a normal 100km run. Average is 18.9mph

Can't beat mixing your unit systems eh oldgit? 🙂

For what it's worth, my ride home from work is 26 km / 16 miles, and has 180m of ascent, and that takes me about an hour on a good day. I would class that as a bit hilly but not all that (although all the hills are in the second half).

Also, for David Taylforth:

Loop of Coniston - assuming it is the obvious 17 mile lap of it going through Lowick:

http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/42049858
Ascent: 139m (456 feet).

Joe

Can't beat mixing your unit systems eh oldgit?

Blame the system though innit, I was learned up that way. in the 60/70s you was taught up all about decimals and all that, but the real world was all Imperial wasn't it.

Can't beat mixing your unit systems eh oldgit?

I don't see anything wrong at all in that

As with oldgit, I'm perfectly ambidextrous with metric and imperial - I see nothing at all wrong with a measurement like 27" 3mm

Mountain Mayhem is famous for being flat. That's 1400' in 10 miles.

[url= http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/cycling/tour-de-france/stages/18.html ]THIS IS A HILLY RIDE[/url]

My local loop is 17.5 miles with about 270m of ascent. I'd say that was rolling. To be hilly it would need to be at least twice as much. Think the type of hills make a big difference too. The hills after the bealach na ba climb on the road back round to Torridon are very steep and short - thats very definitely hilly!

This is the data from a road ride I did at Easter, the first 40min are straight up a big hill:

Villar, Cabezabellosa, El Torno, Plasencia
Created by My Tracks on Android.
Total Distance: 54.27 km (33.7 mi)
Total Time: 2:11:58
Moving Time: 2:06:41
Average Speed: 24.67 km/h (15.3 mi/h)
Average Moving Speed: 25.70 km/h (16.0 mi/h)
Max Speed: 64.30 km/h (40.0 mi/h)
Min Elevation: 367 m (1206 ft)
Max Elevation: 993 m (3257 ft)
Elevation Gain: 875 m (2871 ft)
Max Grade: 7 %
Min Grade: -10 %
Recorded: Fri Apr 22 18:05:29 CEST 2011
Activity type: cycling

Full map [url= http://tinyurl.com/62mrglb ]here[/url], click on the last leg to get the route profile.

Edit: once over the big hill, the rest of the ride is relatively flat.

Also, for David Taylforth:

Loop of Coniston - assuming it is the obvious 17 mile lap of it going through Lowick:

http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/42049858
Ascent: 139m (456 feet).

Joe

Thanks, that appears to make much more sense!

Below is my mid week road hack, 25 miles and just over 1000 ft of accent

[url= http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/29563354 ]Grane Road Hack[/url]

and below is our Friday night bimble ride area, 15 miles and just over 800 ft of accent.

[url= http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/30369134 ]Friday bimble[/url]

Oh the joys of living in Rossendale

So with the exceptions of..

The TDF yesterday
Molgrips in the Alps
A mountian in Cyprus

My route is actualy the hillyest! (and the 2nd and 3rd oft hose I reckon you should halve the 'hillyness' as mine couns decents as well, those are just distances to the top)

The plan isn't to do 1 lap BTW, the plan was to do multiple laps with relatively few difficult junctions so I could judge my fitness through the year, I only did one lap yesterday as it was bucketing it down and I had no gillet so the decents were a bit chilly!

Just looked at the other 2 loops that I do. The 1st one is 24 miles and has 410m of ascent, the 2nd is 30 miles and has 640m of ascent. The 2nd loop is our 'hilly' loop, though its basically just two big ups and downs. Comparing to your 12.5 miles I'd say that counts as hilly 🙂

My wet and windy hilly ride from yesterday
it took a disappointing 7 hrs 40

[IMG] [/IMG]

[i]100ft per mile of climbing is an undulating ride, 200ft per mile is hilly, 300ft per mile pretty demanding terrain. Roughly speaking.[/i]

I dont understand this So on a hilly 100 mile ride 20,000ft of climbing would equate to a hilly ride?

I aim for 60-80ft climbed per mile. 60ft/mile is a minimum otherwise I feel that I've cheated myself, 80ft/mile is a good work out. 100ft/mile is just not fun.

This is averaged across the whole ride on a circular ride, so of course all that climbing will be matched with equivalent descents. If the measure is only climbing miles then this maps to 120-160ft/mile.

What does it all mean, I dunno. I just know that that is what I can usually accomplish around these parts and that is hilly enough for me.

I dont understand this So on a hilly 100 mile ride 20,000ft of climbing would equate to a hilly ride?

Seems to be way too much climbing - another route I've done a couple of times with two Cat 1 climbs has roughly 2000m over 100km, but that's only half that. I'd certainly class it as a hilly ride.

tinas - where 'bouts are you ? I live in Skelton; usually my 15 mile 'hillyish' route is skelton - lingdale - stanghow - moors road - moorsholm - loftus and back

I'm equally unfit / slow if you fancy a ride tho 😉

Stating the obvious here but ... It all depends what you like to ride.
Lakes and Calderdale are always going to be hilly!

As a general rule of thumb, for an all-day ride on an MTB I'd be expecting 1000 to 1600 metres of climbing over a 25 to 30 mile ride to make it into the "hilly" category.
A vertical mile would be a good threshold for a "very hilly" ride I reckon.

A better indicator of a "hilly" ride is when its hilly enough for the otherwise single-speeders to get their geared bikes out for the day. 😆

I don't think I've ever managed anything approaching 12mph average on any MTB ride ever though. 😥

<EDIT> OOPS I should read properly before posting, never occurred to me that roads might be involved 🙁 </EDIT>

That's what I though mogrim. I'm clearly not reading it right I've done routes with major climbs at around 7000ft climbing over 100 miles.

100ft per mile of climbing is an undulating ride, 200ft per mile is hilly, 300ft per mile pretty demanding terrain. Roughly speaking.

Agree with above about these figures - way too ambitious. Stage 18 of the TdF this week is being billed as possibly the hardest tour stage of all time. It is 204km with 8893m of climbing. That equates to just over 200ft per mile over the stage & I'd calling it just a Tad more than Hilly!

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Similarly who has done the Fred Whitton - that works out at just over 100ft per mile & I'd call it more than undualating!

Yeh the Fred Whitton is about as hilly a loop as you could get and its 14000 - 15000ft I think.