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100 ft per mile a "good" climb?

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100 ft per mile a "good" climb?

Old 03-16-09, 11:22 AM
  #26  
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Originally Posted by nickthaquick1
alright, ill have to re-do my ride and figure the exact numbers out. but there are dips in the climb...maybe a spot or two of about 2 tenths of a mile where it goes downward...I usually stand up and hammer the entire length, with specific points where i stop and catch my breath. My HRM said i sustained 190, and stayed in the upper 170's for the entire trip. I def. didnt do it @ 30mph tho...i think i kept it at 15-16, which impressed myself...idk about you pro's out there on bikeforums.com

if you can tell from a map what the grade is its in quincy/braintree, ma...the road is called chickatawbut (spelling?)
If you kept it at 15 or 16 mph then you didn't ride 4 miles in 8.5 minutes. I wonder if the distance is 4 km. Converting to miles gives about 2.5 miles, and makes the grade about 3.3% (420 ft/2.5 mi). 8.5 min for that route would be just under 18 mph, closer to what you're saying here. Are you taking your ride data from a bicycle computer? Check if it's measuring in kilometers or miles.
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Old 03-16-09, 11:34 AM
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Here's your climb:

https://toporoute.com/cgi-bin/bicycle...EYMWDVYBUBQHWM







As a comparison, here's a local climb I do sometimes. Keep in mind that I am not a climber.


Last edited by Busta Quad; 03-16-09 at 11:39 AM.
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Old 03-16-09, 11:37 AM
  #28  
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Originally Posted by asgelle
Can you cite even one ride of any meaningful length that averages 5% (i.e., total climbing divided by total distance)?
My post was responding to a post talking about *maximums*, not *averages.
I am saying a ride that has no grades exceeding 5% is what I regard as a "flat" ride.
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Old 03-16-09, 11:47 AM
  #29  
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Originally Posted by Shimagnolo
My post was responding to a post talking about *maximums*, not *averages.
I am saying a ride that has no grades exceeding 5% is what I regard as a "flat" ride.
I agree with that definition of flat. 5% is still big chainring territory for many cyclists.
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Old 03-16-09, 12:04 PM
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Very few rides will average 5%, unless they end on top of something.

What goes up, must come down.

5% as the average for the climbing portion of a ride isn't tough at all though. I am not just saying this as a Coloradan. I grew up riding in the NE.
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Old 03-16-09, 12:04 PM
  #31  
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Originally Posted by BustaQuad
Here's your climb:

https://toporoute.com/cgi-bin/bicycle...EYMWDVYBUBQHWM







As a comparison, here's a local climb I do sometimes. Keep in mind that I am not a climber.

BustaQuad, that's a really awesome site. I've always wanted to find something like this because I don't have a GPS and wondered what the gradient and elevation was on some of my rides.
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Old 03-16-09, 12:06 PM
  #32  
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Originally Posted by johnny99
I agree with that definition of flat. 5% is still big chainring territory for many cyclists.


There is a guy I ride with that goes up that with a 63T (custom)/21 while I am getting ball-busted on my 39/25.

edit: link did not work

Last edited by kimconyc; 03-16-09 at 12:13 PM.
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Old 03-16-09, 12:12 PM
  #33  
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Originally Posted by dark13star
Very few rides will average 5%, unless they end on top of something.

What goes up, must come down.

5% as the average for the climbing portion of a ride isn't tough at all though. I am not just saying this as a Coloradan. I grew up riding in the NE.
5% average grade for an entire ride is 260 feet per mile. Most people consider 100 feet per mile (average over a long ride) to be a hilly ride, so 200+ is very unusual.

However, the poster was talking rides that never exceed 5%. I think most regular cyclists that a ride that never exceeds 5% is very flat. I once did rode the Katy Trail in Missouri (200 miles from Kansas City to St. Louis) and that ride claims to have a maximum grade of 5%. That was the flattest 200 miles that I have ever done, and probably the flattest ride that I will ever do. The steepest part of the ride was on a bridge that went over one of the rivers. I did the whole ride in my big chainring.
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Old 03-16-09, 12:21 PM
  #34  
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Originally Posted by johnny99
5% average grade for an entire ride is 260 feet per mile. Most people consider 100 feet per mile (average over a long ride) to be a hilly ride, so 200+ is very unusual.

However, the poster was talking rides that never exceed 5%. I think most regular cyclists that a ride that never exceeds 5% is very flat. I once did rode the Katy Trail in Missouri (200 miles from Kansas City to St. Louis) and that ride claims to have a maximum grade of 5%. That was the flattest 200 miles that I have ever done, and probably the flattest ride that I will ever do. The steepest part of the ride was on a bridge that went over one of the rivers. I did the whole ride in my big chainring.
I think it would be interesting to test cyclists' ability to estimate a percentage grade (by sight or effort needed to climb it, I guess). Many people have an awful time estimating distances and heights by sight. When two people on this forum talk about 5% grades, I don't think we can be certain they're talking about exactly the same thing. One or both might be way off.

It might be interesting if someone could post some good photographs of short climbs and see how many people can correctly judge the grade from the photo.
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Old 03-16-09, 12:21 PM
  #35  
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Originally Posted by johnny99
5% average grade for an entire ride is 260 feet per mile. Most people consider 100 feet per mile (average over a long ride) to be a hilly ride, so 200+ is very unusual.
Yeah, I just checked the numbers. I am training for the Devil Moutain Double.... only 87.4'/mile. Pfft... What am I worried about?
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Old 03-16-09, 12:34 PM
  #36  
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Originally Posted by dunningrb
I think it would be interesting to test cyclists' ability to estimate a percentage grade (by sight or effort needed to climb it, I guess). Many people have an awful time estimating distances and heights by sight. When two people on this forum talk about 5% grades, I don't think we can be certain they're talking about exactly the same thing. One or both might be way off.

It might be interesting if someone could post some good photographs of short climbs and see how many people can correctly judge the grade from the photo.
If the hill is short enough to see the top, it is usually not very hard. If you can't see the top, then you need an altimeter to judge the elevation gain. For hard hills, you can look at the street signs.

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Old 03-16-09, 12:40 PM
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Originally Posted by johnny99
If the hill is short enough to see the top, it is usually not very hard. If you can't see the top, then you need an altimeter to judge the elevation gain. For hard hills, you can look at the street signs.
It shouldn't be too hard. But looking at the top of the hill you have to estimate the distance from the base of the hill to the top, then estimate its height. Not everyone is good at making these kinds of estimates by sight. Some people are terrible.
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Old 03-16-09, 12:42 PM
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Originally Posted by johnny99
If the hill is short enough to see the top, it is usually not very hard. If you can't see the top, then you need an altimeter to judge the elevation gain. For hard hills, you can look at the street signs.

Where is this?
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Old 03-16-09, 12:56 PM
  #39  
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Here is a fun one: Length 5.94 miles Max 7693 ft Min 5413 ft Mean grade 7.3%

https://toporoute.com/cgi-bin/bicycle...YPNGKTNSGEVDTW
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Old 03-16-09, 01:18 PM
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Maximum grade is also problematic. My rides often list 27-30%, but when you look at the data, you see that is just the curve in a switchback and it is very short (still out of the saddle stuff though). I load my Garmin data into Ascent and it shows me my average climbing grade, or the calculation of grade averaged for any time I am going up...
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Old 03-16-09, 01:39 PM
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Originally Posted by Shimagnolo
Where is this?
State Highway 108 in eastern California.
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Old 03-16-09, 01:39 PM
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This one's fun, too. So Cal riders will recognize this one instantly.

Average grade 5%, 8 miles of ascending, 2 miles of descending along the way. The skinny climbers think it's "easy", but the rest of us consider it moderately hard. It's all relative...

Latigo Cyn.
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Old 03-16-09, 02:20 PM
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We've got some steep [but short ones here].





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Old 03-16-09, 02:43 PM
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The first hard part of bonny doon
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Old 03-16-09, 03:02 PM
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https://www.climbbybike.com/climb.asp...ountainID=7701

this is fun
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Old 03-16-09, 03:10 PM
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Haleakala:

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Old 03-16-09, 03:19 PM
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Originally Posted by BustaQuad
Haleakala:

OK, you win the contest for the straightest graph.
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Old 03-16-09, 05:43 PM
  #48  
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you ride this road but don't know how to spell it?

https://www.mountainzone.com/mountain...sp?fid=7524056

There's your hill.

___________________________________

haha YES! thats it, chickatawbut...care about the spelling...so yea, looking at that...its a "good" sized hill to train on right? i dont know any other hillier areas around me
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Old 03-16-09, 05:49 PM
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Originally Posted by BustaQuad
Here's your climb:

https://toporoute.com/cgi-bin/bicycle...EYMWDVYBUBQHWM







As a comparison, here's a local climb I do sometimes. Keep in mind that I am not a climber.


wow thats a pretty sick website...ill check that next time i think something is a "good" hill, and then match it up with your graph
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Old 06-07-18, 09:16 AM
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100 ft per mile over longer rides is plenty for me. Though it always depends on how steep that actual climb ends up being.

Originally Posted by johnny99
100 feet/mile is hilly for a long loop ride (e.g., 10000 feet of climbing in a 100 mile day ride).

100 feet/mile for only the uphills is hardly anything. Even a freeway overpass is usually steeper than that. Around here, the easy hills are around 1500 feet in 4 miles.
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