How hilly to be classed as a hilly route?

Just flicking through my strava it looks like I can do ~1000m in 30-35km around here. I’ve been trying for 1000m in 25km but just can’t make it work here as a full loop. I have some 1000m in 25km loops recorded but that was when I lived in Wales.

For me a hilly ride is when I get home and fall off the bike dismounting at my door, hot weather can also cause that to happen though…

During (the first?) lockdown Restrap had a competition: you had to come up with a legal ride of 80km or less with as much climbing as possible, you weren’t allowed to ride a hill twice. I managed to get one with 4400m of climbing doing most of the bridleways on the Helvellyn range. I didn’t find out who won or what the route was.

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

Coming back to my own question…. I have been giving this some thought and think it goes something like this.

A rise becomes a hill if you cannot get over it by sheer power alone. You cannot just stomp on the peddles, out of the saddle to reach the crest. You have to shift and sit and spin it out, that’s a hill.

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

For me, when it becomes a categorised Strava hill. These must average 3%+ gradient (~158 feet climbing per mile).

Cat4: 262+ feet
Cat3: 525+ feet
Cat2: 1050+ feet
Cat1: 2100+ feet
HC: 4200+ feet

Plenty of cat4s and a few cat3s near me, between Lower Upham; North Marden and Liphook (western side of South Downs).

Still yet to try a road cat2, freehub failure on way to Denbigh cost me a shot at https://www.strava.com/segments/6671093 Road To Hell in July, the one I really want to attempt is https://www.strava.com/segments/3853027 Bwlch Y Groes and the closest to Southampton looks to be just north of Taunton https://www.strava.com/segments/2134496 .

A rise becomes a hill if you cannot get over it by sheer power alone. You cannot just stomp on the peddles, out of the saddle to reach the crest. You have to shift and sit and spin it out, that’s a hill.

I get that the above works for you and your riding, but it doesn’t stand for others. There are riders (not me!) who can stand and stomp / attack a mountain pass, that doesn’t make it a rise.

Why categorise? If it’s hilly for you, that’s one of your hilly rides.
Hills aside there’s enough information in your post to conclude that yes your regular 30-45 minute ride is making you fitter.
Don’t overthink it.

Exactly. I live in a fairly flat area but even that can mean 100ft climbing per mile on some of my gravel loops and I would count them as small rolling hills (bit of flat, bit of up, bit of down and repeat) and it makes the ride quite an effort compared to when I take the flatest route I can.

50 m climbing per km along as a very minimum for a hilly ride Ie average gradient 1:10

I had a thread on this quite a while back. Consensus was 1000ft per 10 miles, has worked for me as a good benchmark.

I’m usually around the 600ft per 10 miles mark where I live, have to find extra hilly bits to get near the benchmark

Live in Essex which isn’t renowned for its hills or mountain biking but surprised by how big the scene is. For local mid week rides I generally will do either 1) a longer xc ride/road/footpath ride that can clock up over 20miles but only 1000ft climbed (steady leg spin) 2) a trail ride taking into account as much downhill heading trail to clock up 15miles and more like 1500ft climbed (more of attacking every be of the ride with only a few stops).

Come the weekend Over Surrey I will try and get 20mile and over 3000ft climbed but have been known to get 15miles with 3500ft climbs (all with slow pedal ups and attack the descents).

My point there’s no definite answer but would say use 10mile/1000ft as a guild because it depends on how you ride thoughs miles.