How hilly to be classed as a hilly route?

I’ve been getting out once or twice a week for a quick lunchtime blast up the woods whilst I’ve been WFH and I feel much better for it. My mind was wandering as I was winching up the hill from my house to the woods earlier as to how hilly my little 30-45 minute blast is and if it is actually making me any fitter?

I know I need to do some longer rides to increase my endurance, which I’ve tried to do a few of but I’m thinking little and often with a few steep hills must be better than nothing.

My ride stats from my watch for today’s ride seem a bit off, so I’ve just whacked it into Komoot which says the first mile of my ride is 375ft of climbing. Is that classed as hilly? My watch is telling me that I did a total ascent of 0.62 miles in just over 4 miles. By my calcs that is 3273.6 feet which seems way off as most of the uphill is in the first mile, although I did do a few steep runs followed by climbing back up once I was in the woods.

Anyway, just idle curiosity if you guys would class that as hilly or if I’m just unfit! It is definitely getting easier and I’m not having to stop until I get to the top of the hill so I feel like it must be doing me some good 🙂

Cheers

I think something’s off with your watch unless the ride was up Snowdon.

Unless that’s supposed to be 0.6 miles horizontally spent climbing?

I think you’re right @kelron! 0.6 miles horizontally doesn’t make sense either though as I was going uphill for at least half of my 4 mile ride today. The min and max elevation seem about right compared to Komoot so I’ve no idea how it worked out the total ascent!

I’m bored so I’ve just worked out the first mile averages out at 7.1% gradient. Is that plus lots of ups and downs for the rest of the ride classed as hilly?

Errrr…. 3272′ of ascent in 4 miles is most definitely hilly!

Yep something way off with your data – either in the actual data or the way you are reporting it.

Not sure what I’d class as hilly as I guess it depends how the ascent is achieved a bit. You could have a route that was flat as a pancake for miles and miles with one killer massive hill that would look very mediocre in a ride summary but would be very memorable for the hill and have your legs hurting the next day. A (very) rough guess – 250m of ascent in every 10km of riding (which will have ups as well as downs) might count as hilly.

Personally, I’d call ~60+ feet climbing per mile as a hilly ride.

However, there are exceptions, https://www.strava.com/activities/4049898492 has stats (36.5 miles, ~ 1400 feet) that suggest a very easy ride, until you see ~803 feet of that climbing was over just ~1.5 miles up Draycott’s nasty climb… It was absolutely brutal, even in 34/34, I came so close to putting a foot down. 😮

I class my local MTB riding as hilly, a usual loop is 100′ of ascent for each mile of riding, it can be more.

Been told 1000feet per 10 miles is classed as hilly ride. Probably one of these Cycling Rules BS or something :p

But…

…3273 feet over the course of 4 miles gives average gradient of 15.5%. That is hilly as ****…

That is very interesting woods you have Good Sir… Just to put it into perspective Llanberis Path gains 3166 feet over the course of 4.2 miles, that gives you average gradient of 14.1%.

So, yeah, your watch had probably a bit of a meltdown xD

Cheers!
I.

Roughly 1000ft climbed per 10 miles feels like the benchmark of a normal hilly mountain bike ride to me.
Road ride is harder to say – you can do some killer climbing but with a lot of valley miles that might make the vert / distance ratio nothing special. Or you can do longer rides where you rack 3000 ft and you don’t feel like you’ve even climbed anything, it has sort of accrued from nowhere.

This is one of those threads that keeps surfacing every few months …

Depends what you are used to and also how you feel on the day. If you live in Cambridge then 10m per kilometre will feel hilly (I’ve ridden around there and have been on hillier Channel crossings!) whereas if you live in The Lakes or Dales then 10m per Km is flat.

Somewhere around 20m per kilometre is where things start to get interesting, certainly by the time you get to 30m per Km then few would argue against it being hilly. I’ve a local road loop that does 1100m in 30km, there’s hardly any bit of it you’d consider “flat”. I was out on the moors between Threshfield and Malham on Sunday and did 600m of climbing in 30km but to my mind wasn’t hilly at all – there was only one big hill and one small hill so all the rest was accumulated by those little ups and downs

Thanks all, I realise the 0.6 miles ascent is total bobbins but interesting to hear opinions on what is classed as a hilly ride.

Just in case I’m being thick, here are some screenshots of my ride stats. I am reading that right aren’t I?

Also a pic of one of the climbs back up after finding some cheeky downhill bits 😜

TL;DR 2% is a pretty hilly climb eg 100m per 5km

Local loops around the Hereford/Worcester border here and I always aim for at least 100ft per mile average climbing. Not a hard and fast rule, depends which way I go but that’s my current target for getting some fitness back (new variant of my route comes in at around 120ft per mile).

I only work in metric but my opinion is a standard lumpy ride in the uk would be 100m of ascent for every 10km’s where a hilly one would be double the ascent for the same distance.

Thanks all, can I ask what you are all using to track your rides? I’m currently using the Samsung health app on my watch/phone but its obviously bobbins!

Where I stay I tried to create the shortest loop where you would climb 1000m of ascent without riding the same section twice, my shortest route was under 50km’s, some of those climbs were over 15% gradients. 1000m in 30km’s is what you see in the Alps.

For me if it feels hilly then its hilly.

Garmin 130, but even when I ride with pals who also use Garmin devices our total ascent can differ. Strava apparently calculates ascent differently as well.

Trail conditions can make the climbing effort differ each time you ride it, just keep plugging away and try to either increase the amount of ascent you do each ride or increase the speed you ride it or ride it in bigger gears.

If it’s hard going then it must be training.

Quick calc of max-min elevation suggests you would’ve needed to climb from the lowest point of your ride to the highest 7 times to get 0.62mi or 3,274ft of climbing in.

According to the elevation chart I’d estimate you’ve done more like 700ft of climbing overall.

It’s odd as the elevation profile looks right, so how has it calculated the gain incorrectly?

Out of interest, I’ve just looked back at this year’s activities recorded on Strava for myself and a few buddies.

I live at the base of the North Shore mountains in Vancouver and probably ride 50/50 road and mountain bikes.

Overall, my average ascent is 17.6 metre/kilometer, which is, by any definition, pretty hilly.
When I look at some of my buddies who do just mountain biking, their average is around 32-36m/km whereas the local road riders are 10-14m/km.

Whereas some of my road riding buddies in Liverpool/Lancashire are well below 5m/km…

So, I guess it all depends on whether you are road or mountain biking and whereabouts you live (as that sets expectations).

Gravel bike circa 80-100ft per mile
XC bike circa 150-200ft per mile
Enduro bike circa 250-300ft per mile

I do though live in/near the Tweed Valley.

for MTB, hilly to me is 1000ft for every 7-10 miles
Very hilly is 1000ft in every 3-5 miles

Roadies I know do 1000ft every 10miles for hilly

Where I stay I tried to create the shortest loop where you would climb 1000m of ascent without riding the same section twice, my shortest route was under 50km’s,

I’ve been trying to find a 30 mile road route near me that will do the same (not succeeded yet), but being in the Chilterns we get some 20% gradients added in for good measure.

I had a similar discussion at work a while back with a colleague who tried riding a bike to work but didn’t like it because of the “hill” that our workplace sits on. My view is that a hill has to be big enough that you can hide a building behind it and our workplace is on top of a rise. Despite me being right and him being wrong, he still doesn’t ride his bike to work.

So a hilly route would have to be one where your are surprised at what’s on the other side once you get to the top.

+23 for the 1000ft every 10 miles.

Interesting point there ^ whats the classification of a hill? When does it go from a rise to a hill?

Minimum of 1000 feet per 10 miles seems about right to me. Living in Sheffield riding in the dark peak every road ride has 1000 feet of climbing in every 10 miles. A natural Xc loop works about the same. Sessionning some downhills like at blacka or win hill or something easily doubles that, but I’d be pushing up some of it.
Recently had a week in Northumberland. Did a 16 mile loop which was mainly following the sandstone way plus some other bridleways and roads. 1600 feet of climbing. Went to Kielder and did the deadwater fell red route. Double the amount of climbing per mile. Did the blue, was about 1000 feet per ten miles again.

+23 for the 1000ft every 10 miles.

Another vote for that one, it’s a decent baseline.
As mentioned, it will vary depending on road, gravel or MTB and obviously where you’re riding!

I’m on the northern edge of the Peak District and I can head off into Cheshire or along the canal towpaths and it’ll be pan-flat. I did the Cheshire Ring canal loop the other week, just over 100 miles and the whole ride had about 1100ft climbing (all up canal lock flights)!

Equally, I can head into the back lanes of Chapel, Whaley Bridge, Hayfield, Eccles Pike and do 1500ft in <10 miles.

Just over 1000ft in 10 miles is pretty standard for the Dales. For the Lakes a bit more, usually.

Where I stay I tried to create the shortest loop where you would climb 1000m of ascent without riding the same section twice, my shortest route was under 50km’s,

A bunch of us did a similar Strava challenge during lockdown, rules were:

Ride less than 50km, start & finish from home, roads / trails can only be ridden once in opposite directions (no hill reps), go for maximum height gain.

I bagged: 28.53 miles / 7168′ from home in Stroud.

A guy in Sheffield got 2500 meters.

1000 ft in 13 miles for one of my local hilly MTB routes – Need to make it slightly more hilly then!

A guy in Sheffield got 2500 meters

There are a lot of small roads in walkley and crookes!

There are a lot of small roads in walkley and crookes!

He did a route of the roads first but i don’t recall he beat us Stroudies with it, so he took to the off road & smashed us!!!

There’s an annual hill climb event with only 3200 feet climbing in 23 miles. 2500 meters in 50k is just bonkers
https://www.theoutdoorcity.co.uk/sheffield-city-life/events/the-magnificent-seven-2019-p1046491

Qwerty I’m intrigued by this route now… is there a GPs/strava link?

@docrobster took some digging, but i found it, the guys name is Tom Bruce, Alan Goldsmith dangled the carrot.

Road ride: https://www.strava.com/activities/3321614063

Off Road: https://www.strava.com/activities/3338541260

The bars been set at 8202′, think you can beat it?

Ride less than 50km, start & finish from home, roads / trails can only be ridden once in opposite directions (no hill reps), go for maximum height gain.

Not a chance in hell. Some people I know might.
Thanks for the links

I think averages are misleading, depends on how the ascent is gained particularly if you’re a biffer like me. (Depending on surface as well) I can spin up 4 and 5% gradients with relative ease, 8-10%+ gets harder and really steep slopes **** me up. In tech terms the former are Z3 efforts and I can do that all day.  8-10% is Z4 and start to eat reserves, steep is Z5 just to keep moving and you can’t do many of them.

Post up the route you took.

So many variables beyond the climb though.

I did a ride last week that would have been fine on a gravel bike. 50km on the dot, 1500m climb. Really not that bad and i wouldn’t class as hilly.

My regular singletrack is ~16km with 450m vertical. It’s constant up and down, just as hard.

A local favourite from my front door goes up 1000m in 24km. The first 250m is all on tar, but then there’s a straight 280m climb over about 3km on a slippy log shute that’s pure evil.