macenash

It truly depends on the area you live and are used to riding. I just completed a century that was labeled and known for being flat and fast but it had over 3500ft of climb. Now to some that may not be considered flat, but when you consider most parts of my state, I usually average 2500-3000ft of climb in 25-30 miles. When you look at it like that, it would appear flat and fast.

filtersweep

I took this ride the other day--- consider it to be "hilly" rather than mountainous (as it is before the mountains really get started). Nothing is flat around here. I consider a hilly ride to be about 1000ft per hour of riding, and a mountain ride to be 100 ft per mile. Then again, I am a former flatlander.

waterrockets 

I think if the ride was significantly harder than usual, and it was because of climbing, it was a hilly ride.

umd

FWIW, my average ft/mile for the year is only about 60.

patentcad

Any ride that gets me back to the driveway here atop Mt. Cad is a hilly ride. They're all hilly.

Next question.

Rutnick

two weeks ago I did a 60 mile ride with 5k feet of climbing. I big ringed it the whole way. Glad to know it was flat. Then again....my friend fixed geared it. 44x16. His foot never touched pavement. He also recently did a 3/4 mile climb with 12% grade. Never touched pavement. It was 30 miles into the ride.

Hilly has more to do with the individual than what others think. It has been a hard lesson for me to understand. What is flat for us may be hilly for others and as hard as it is to understand....we have to respect it. It is something I'm trying to change.

patentcad

It really is completely subjective and very relative. Hilly to a Floridian won't be hilly to a New Yorker, and the NY dude's ride won't be hilly to a guy from Boulder Colorado.

ehidle

That's a hilly ride...

Here's a picture from the top of another:

supton

I started riding last summer, and found my "hill ride": a 26 mile ride with 1800' of climbing. Mind you, newbie. The first 3 or 4 miles is flat, then there is 2 miles where it's maybe 2-3%, but with a 5-10mph headwind. Then it turns into an 8% climb, but only after I've worn myself out. Then there is 3 hills where I saw 15% on the computer as I go further. Lots of 5% hills.

Needless to say, I'm granny gear for most of it. At 10%, I'm standing. At 15%, I'm crying. My only consolation is that I refuse to gear all the way down, limiting myself to 36 gear inches.

photonick

One of my 30 mile rides has 5300ish ft of climbing is that good?

maddyfish

I don't know about that one. I have ridden some mountains in the Rockies and the Appalatians that I'm in the big ring the whole time. But there are hills within sight of my house that are granny gear.
What Inoticed about the mountains (being very general here) is that they were long, but not that steep. Lots of hills here that are much steeper, though shorter than the riding I did in the mountains.

Mr. Beanz

Someday, I want to do a hilly ride!

Brillig

A "hilly ride" is any ride that I work harder and yet have a slower average speed than I would have on a flat ride of the same distance.

maddyfish

See it is all relative. I don't consider it a hill unless it is 300ft/mile.

umd

300 ft/mile is 5.7%, if you were only going up and did not have to come back down. But for the ride to be 300 ft/mile, the climb would have to be double that, 11.4%. I don't think anybody could reasonably set the "hilly" threshold that high. This one-upsmanship of my hilly is more than your hilly presumes that "hilly" is the highest designation, which I don't believe. To me, there is "mountainous" above that which includes long climbs and rides dominated by climbing. Most of my riding falls into "hilly", and ocassionally I have chances to do mountainous, but some days I have to settle for flat or rolling. Group rides, especially the fast/race training rides, are usually more rolling than anything, as hills just blow the groups apart and you lose some of the training effect.

nickthaquick1

alright this might be a complete noob question but how are you guys posting those graphs of climbing with HR onto here? is it you guys are using a computer with GPS like a garmin? i got $129 sigma with an altitude feature on it. im trying to figure out the % grade on my normal ride through the blue hills, which i presume to be "hilly" haha.

mattm

close to what i was gonna say - a hilly ride is one that's tough on a fixed gear.

also some use the metric of 1,000 feet of gain per 10 miles as a start for when a route is considered hilly.

do-well

I noted the thread earlier that resurrected the "how fast can you change a flat" pissing contest. Now we've turned to the never-gonna-die "what is a hilly ride?" pissing contest.

One man's mountain is another person's hill. That person's hill is another person's gradual, but steady incline. That steady incline is another person's wall.

Note how the TDF has a system to define hills. You know why? Because it's all subjective semantics until someone writes the rules. Until the rules offer definitions, you have the power to write your own. If you really want to write the rules, I'd not turn to BF for expertise.

Ultimately, writing rules is stupid. Stupid because it's hard to write rules when you are on a bike. And I'd rather be on a bike.

GP

I don't use an altimeter but one hint is the word Grade on the street signs.

maddyfish

I thought we were talking hills, not mountains? I don't conisder a ride to be hilly, unless it includes climbs with 300 or more in a mile of less. Mountains are a different story. From my experience, mountains are rarely very steep compared to the hills around here, but much longer. The length is where the difficulty lies. Here, a 5.7% grade is not much, but it would only go for a mile of so. No way around it, 300-350 feet is as high as it gets here. A hilly ride here better have climbs in the 8-14% range to be satisfying, since they will be short.

In the mountains 5.7 % over 10 miles or so would be a big deal. That would be a mountainous ride.

umd

When people are saying 100ft/mile they are not talking about one hill, they are talking about the average ascent over the length of the ride. My whole point before was that averages (just as with speed) can be deceptive. I think for me, a good indication of whether a ride is "hilly" or not is whether a group can stay together. Once the rides start to get hilly they get blown apart. If the "spinters" can stay with the "climbers" and everyone is close enough in fitness that the ride can stay together at a fast pace on the flats then it isn't hilly.

maddyfish

Oh, I don't do group rides. I ride to a big hill, then go up and down it a number of times. My favorite is 345 feet over .8 mile, I usually go up and down it 6 times. That is a hilly ride to me.

daddyto3

I live right at the mouth of a canyon here in Utah that I ride nearly everyday. I have 2 rides that I do up the canyon depending on time. The shorter ride is 7.55 miles with about 1600 feet in elevation gain the longer ride is 12 miles with just about 3k feet in elevation gain. I consider both of these rides to be more than hilly, in fact I like to think of them as mountainous. There is another ride that a lot of bikers do around here (suncrest for you Utah riders) that is like 4 miles and about 1700 or 1800 feet of elevation gain. My goal for August is to ride up to the top and then down the other side and then turn around and back over and home. I will be taking the advil before I leave on this ride. Both of these will be in the Tour of Utah stage 4 this year. They will be doing just under 100 miles with 15k feet of climbing. Now that is some crazy climbing!

https://www.tourofutah.com/index.php?...=race_stages_4

merlinextraligh

Yeah, raise the altitude 2000 feet, and turn around do it again the next day,and you'd have something.

www.everestchallenge.com

patentcad

Mt. Cad (aka Mt. Doom) gains 400' in a mile.