Originally Posted by
CheGiantForLife
Riding in a tornado or wearing a parachute to create drag is not what I call real world.
In the real world, 13% grade is harder than flat grade. This is self=evident to normal folk.
Normal folk who don't know anything about bicycling.
Maybe you need this explained to you, you're obviously very confused. The issue on a 13% grade is that the minimum effort needed to keep enough forward momentum to keep the bike balanced is at the edge of your capabilities, in other words you are very close to the max effort you can make just to keep the bike moving. Obviously, on the flat, the minimum effort requirement is much, much smaller. What you don't seem to get is that there is actually nothing to stop you from making that same very hard effort on the flat that you do on the 13% grade other than your own unwillingness to do so.
No one said anything about a tornado, riding into a 20 mph headwind is no more outlandish than riding up a 13% grade. I rode about 25 miles into a 14 mph headwind on all sorts of grades during a 76 mile ride on Saturday. Between the climbing and the headwind, my speed was low, and I was pretty damn exhausted.
You might be using your muscles differently producing the 250 watts on the climb than the 250 watts on the flat, but the level of effort is still the same.
I don't do high intensity interval training (HIIT), but many people do so on the flat. If you were right, they couldn't.