Vertically challenged - how high can you get?

bahzob

As a member of the OCD I get my kicks from climbing as many cols as I can. Last week in the Pyrenees I set a lifetime best of managing over 5000m climbing in a day for the first time (route below, it was actually a bit longer at 190km but hairpins are a pain to map by hand)
http://www.bikely.com/maps/bike-path/Roquefort-5000

(My rule for rides like this is that you can go up the same col twice but not by the same route. So riding up and down the same hill like a demented hamster doesn't count)

This route could be extended to 6000m+ in a day via nearby cols but wondered if anyone else out there also seeks the climbing heights and if so has 5000m+ routes they could recommend.

Liketoclimb

In the US those types of days can be had in several places. In the eastern Sierras you could spend several days of 5000m climbing without seeing the same hill. Same for Death Valley CA, Bighorn Mtns in Wyoming, Colorado Rockies, Southern California and a few other places. Check out the book 'The Complete Guide to Climbing (By Bike) for the actual climbs.

John C.

Sorry, what is the OCD ? If it's like the SOG (Sad Old Git) I'm in. 5000m of climb in a day is pretty good going, We might struggle to beat that but we can do 2-3000 easily enough without going too far from my own back door. North Yorkshire has some wonderful hills, on paper they don't come close to those on the continent but what they lack in numbers they make up for in sheer brutality.

bahzob

OCD = 'L'Order des Cols Durs. Its a French organisation with a UK branch whose members submit a yearly record of climbs they have made. (It has a web site but has gone walkies at the moment)

Its linked to the Club des Cent Cols http://www.centcols.org/regle_du_jeu/rules_of_the_game.htm

which you can join once having climbed 100 cols (5 over 2000m)

Shadowduck

bahzob wrote:

OCD = 'L'Order des Cols Durs.

I had assumed it was Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, given the subject matter!

knedlicky

bahzob wrote:

... wondered if anyone else out there ... has 5000m+ routes they could recommend.

Several sportives supposedly include 5000 m or more climbing - the Marmotte is said to have 5000 m (though I suspect it doesn’t quite, unless one includes every bump in the road), the Ötztaler Radmarathon says it includes 5500 m, and the longest route of the Alpen Brevet out of Andermatt claims to have over 6600 m climbing along it.

Some non-competitive brevets also include about 5000 m climbing, like the BRA from Grenoble and Alpes-Romandes from not far outside Montreux.

knedlicky

bahzob wrote:

OCD = 'L'Order des Cols Durs. Its a French organisation with a UK branch whose members submit a yearly record of climbs they have made. (It has a web site but has gone walkies at the moment)

It doesn't surprise me if their website has 'gone walkies'.

I thought about joining the UK branch of OCD a few years ago, and when writing for application forms, I asked can I include roads which don’t actually have a pass name on a UK map but which are essentially passes (and would be designated so if in France, where even the slightest up-and-over roads are called cols). I was meaning the likes of the Bakewell-Buxton road, or the Mold-Moel Famau-Ruthin road.
I felt none the wiser for the answer I received, a very vague, teacher-like answer, neither yes or no, something along the lines that ‘a pass is a road over a ridge adjoining two valleys’ - as if I didn’t know that!

Nonetheless I sent my application and cheque off, and after a while received a brief notification that both had arrived. Then nothing - no membership welcoming letter, no forms for me to list my ridden passes on, no newsletter, no nothing. Eventually I contacted the OCD to ask why I hadn’t received anything and they replied it seemed my cheque had 'gone walkies' when they were moving offices, and since they hadn’t then been able to cash it, I’d never been considered by them as a member.
Rather than consider themselves responsible for the loss of the cheque and initiate my membership, they suggested I re-apply and send another cheque.
I decided I didn’t want to be a member of such an incompetent and irresponsible organisation.

Ryedaleman

My experience is also a little negitive, seems OCD is being run (or not run) by just a few members. I have have had two news letters in 2 years with promises of more to come. However like any club it depends on its members and we..(they cashed my cheque) to contribute. In the past I have been secretry,chairman and dogsbody on many clubs and orgnisations and it does take up an awful lot of time.
At the momentt I'm riding down in the south of Spain in the Velez Malaga area and these climbs are long if not too steep. So my contribution to the OCD club will be limited in the short term!
So who am I to complain