How high are the Pennines?
Gotte
Posts: 494
Or rather, how much do you climb?
I'm trying to put together a tour where there's a climb of about 600m over about 96 km at its steepest.
How bad is that, and how does it equate to, say the Pennines?
I'm trying to put together a tour where there's a climb of about 600m over about 96 km at its steepest.
How bad is that, and how does it equate to, say the Pennines?
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Comments
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600m over 96km is almost flat
600m over 9.6km is 6.25% - a typical alpine gradient.
I'd expect it to take an hour to an hour and a quarter
Pennine climbs for comparison...
Snake from Glossop 360m in 6.75km = 5.4%
Holme Moss from Holmebridge 345m in 4.2km = 7.2%
Fleet Moss from Hawes 303m in 5km = 6%
Hartside from Melmerby 411m in 8km = 5.1%
Great Dunn Fell 635m in 7.5km = 8.5% (up to radio masts)0 -
Thanks for that.
It is actually 96km (well, the route is much longer, but that's the section with the steepest climb) Also, iit does undulate in that distance. It's the Lake Constance to Konigsee cycleroute, which skirts the side of the alps though runs through its foothills.
Again, many thanks.0 -
andrew_s wrote:Holme Moss from Holmebridge 345m in 4.2km = 7.2%
love that climb
and the other way up from woodhead. 0 -
Hi Andrew,
Try this web site for Snake pass and any European climb
http://www.climbbybike.com/climb.asp?Co ... ainID=7437
You can check out all the English climbs on this site and compare them with Tour climbs and spot the difference!
Tom0 -
British climbs can be more punishing than continental ones in one respect:
roads built through the high mountains were generally made recently and with motor vehicles in mind (often trucks), so great care is taken to make sure that the gradients are as smooth as possible (even if steep) so that drivers can find a gear and stay in it. Obviously, this is good for cyclists as you can get into a rhythm.
roads built in Britain generally follow previous tracks used by horses and pedestrians, so they often look as though someone has just poured a ribbon of tar over the existing landscape. Gradients therefore vary every few hundred yards, which doesn't bother a horse nearly as much as an already knackered, rather overweight old man in lycra with 27 gears to choose from and none of them seeming to make the task any more pleasant.
that's why I always feel better cycling on the continent. Or maybe it's the wine!0 -
ColinJ wrote:
Exactly!
that's horrible, where is it?
My personal "favourite" example of this syndrome is the circuit of the Bealach na Ba (Pass of the cattle). The attraction is the 626 metre climb up the pass itself from sea-level and the thrilling descent into Applecross (where my mate took a slide and lost his mobile phone over the precipice and into the void). However, the rest of the ride around the peninsula, which you think is going to be the flat bit, involves cumulatively more climbing than the pass itself, even though no single climb is more than a few hundred metres long. That was a long day involving pain.0 -
It's one of my local climbs, known hereabouts as Mytholm Steeps. It is on the outskirts of Hebden Bridge on the Todmorden side. Take Church Lane off the A646 (you can see the junction in the first photograph).pneumatic wrote:Exactly!
that's horrible, where is it?
The Milk Race was sent up the climb once and over-geared riders fell off all over the place, unable to get their feet out of their toeclips in time!
Fellow steep-hill fetishists might like to know of a couple of cycle events which will be using the climb this year - Pain in the Pennines in June and the Hebden Bridge Star in October.0 -
A few years ago a mate of mine chucked his bike in the back of his car and went up to explore Scotland. He didn't really plan where he was going, he just went where the fancy took him on any particular day. He came back absolutely buzzing, and described one fantastic ride which I looked up on my OS maps. It was the circuit you described above. He said it was one of the best day's he'd ever spent on a bike, and he's had some pretty good ones in his time!pneumatic wrote:My personal "favourite" example of this syndrome is the circuit of the Bealach na Ba (Pass of the cattle). The attraction is the 626 metre climb up the pass itself from sea-level and the thrilling descent into Applecross (where my mate took a slide and lost his mobile phone over the precipice and into the void). However, the rest of the ride around the peninsula, which you think is going to be the flat bit, involves cumulatively more climbing than the pass itself, even though no single climb is more than a few hundred metres long. That was a long day involving pain.0 -
There's a sportive on the Bealech (see the threads on the Sportives and Road Rides boards). Trouble is, you have to book your place within 18 seconds of the organiser farting on a particular morning exactly 243 days beforehand, and I'm not that competitive.
Riding it with a couple of mates was "fun" enough for me.
My maternal ancestors came from Hebden Bridge; maybe I should come down and pay homage to them by doing your ridiculous climb.0
