When is hilly 'hilly'?

stabilised

I've seen various time trial courses described as 'hilly'. Is there an official basis for this description, or just some sort of rough rule of thumb that depends on local custom? Are they to be avoided if you're not much of a climber? Living where I do I have to ride up hills, but don't have much talent for it and make regular use of a granny ring.

Indeed, what do others think of as being a 'hill'? I have an idea in my head that it ought to gain 100 feet or more to be a 'hill' with maybe 500 feet gained being a 'big hill' and 800 feet a 'mountain'. How does that sound? Not that it matters, of course, but I wonder if my ideas on this are out of line with other peoples' expectations and I'm kidding myself about the 'hills' (and 'big hills' and even 'mountains') to be found and ridden.

Bronzie

In this part of the world, a hilly TT is one that doesn't go up and down a pan-flat dual carriageway - they are also called "Sporting courses".

Generally (and I'm talking courses local to me) the climbs are not that hard BUT when you've just ridden the flat before them at 25mph they can cause the odd twinge in the leg department.

One event I used to ride went up the local 20% hill - it was murder after 1 hour plus on your limit - they dropped this part of the course due to falling entries I think and now it's more of a rolling course.

Obviously in the Pennines "hilly" could be very different, but I doubt they'd be really stiff climbs.

geoff_ss

Surely 'hilly' must include gradient. The A5012 (Via Gellia) rises about 250metres (nearly a 'mountain by your definition) between Cromford and Newhaven but it's 10 miles so the gradient never gets too much. Quite a hard ride up though but a glorious pedalling descent, especially on a tandem

Geoff

stabilised

Good point, Geoff - gradient should matter. This is where I wish is was metrically minded as working it all out in imperial is too much for me. How about 100 feet every half mile? I have no idea what that is in percentage or as a 1:6 type ratio, though.

Thanks Bronzie for the thoughts on what a hilly course might look like up here - I did have visions of possibly being expected to race up some of the 20%+ horrors I try to avoid. Why anyone chooses to do hill climbs is a bit beyond me.

ARob

maybe its when it would be a catagorised climb in T de F? but can't see to find out what the defintion of a cat 4 hill is so that doesn't help a lot... :roll: anyone else know?

Mystique

The category is defined by what gear you need to use to climb the hill in a 1927 Phutney-Creech Landyacht

Seriously, it is to do with car gearing and the early days of the tour...

GeorgeShaw

For me, a hill is when I have to get out of the big ring. That kind of combines length and gradient.

doyler78

There's a lot of factors that make up the categorising of a TdF climb. It takes into account the gradient, length, where it occurs in comparison to the rest of the race and how difficult the rest of the race is. There may be other factors but those are the ones I remember.

ColinJ

In audax circles, I think it is generally accepted that 2,000 m of climbing in 200 km is 'hilly'. I've done a couple of events where there were over 2,500 m of climbs (including very steep stuff) in just over 100 km and they were definitely very hilly - probably about 40 km of uphill, 40 km of downhill and only about 20 km of flattish roads. From those figures I'd say that a longish ride with climbing adding up to about 1% of the distance covered is hilly. 2% is very hilly.

In imperial units hilly is about 1,000 ft of climbing per 20 miles. Very hilly about double that.

stabilised

[In imperial units hilly is about 1,000 ft of climbing per 20 miles. Very hilly about double that.]

That might be a better way of thinking about it - overall gain set against overall distance within a complete ride, rather than how much height in how short a distance for a 'hill'. It's better for my ego, which may be why I prefer it, as I think most of my rides count as at least hilly. 2356feet in 23.5 miles yesterday and even up and down the dale floor for ten miles each way gets to about 1000feet.

TdF categories do look pretty complicated - and largely irrelevant to someone like me, too, I think. On holiday I drove up a cat 2 alpine climb a couple of years back two days after the race has been up it and that was fairly sobering. Watching on a cat 3 climb (on the notorious stage 17 when Landis launched his 'come back') most of them seemed to be on the big ring despite it being the third classed climb of the day with an HC to come.[/quote]

pneumatic

I have this cut and pasted into my handheld but I don't recall where it came from:

Typically for the Tour, Category 4 is an easy, short climb.
Category 3 is the easiest "real" climb - ie, 5km at a 5% grade.
Category 2 is something like 5km at a grade of 8-8.5%
Category 1 typically a long climb (15 - 20+ km) at a not too steep grade - 5-6%.
Hors Category is long and steep. The altitude difference is at least 1000m and an average grade of 7% or more.

By that definition, nothing in the UK is HC but a lot of stuff is steeper. I have done two or three French Hors Categories, but I am still reeling from my abject failure to get up Wrynose East.

Nuggs

GeorgeShaw wrote:

For me, a hill is when I have to get out of the big ring. That kind of combines length and gradient.

In that case, I would have to define everything that isn't downhill as a 'hill'

Stewie Griffin

Nuggs wrote:

GeorgeShaw wrote:

For me, a hill is when I have to get out of the big ring. That kind of combines length and gradient.

In that case, I would have to define everything that isn't downhill as a 'hill'

Im similar, if my front wheel is higher than my back wheel, Im climbing !

roger_merriman

yup it's fairly subjective and also depends on the area, for instance if you live in a hilly area what a steep hill will be somewhat differnent to some one from flatter lands, also not all high land is hilly, you can get high land that is flat. and vice versa.

Jazza1969

I suspect this falls iinto the "you know what it is when you see it" category.

Come on up to Scotland, and you'll soon find out what "hilly" means! Even the "flat" bits are hilly here. Indeed, up here you can quickly learn the definitions of "very hilly", "strenuous" and "mountainous", all of which are used regularly in route guides.

nasahapley

ColinJ wrote:

In imperial units hilly is about 1,000 ft of climbing per 20 miles. Very hilly about double that.

Funnily enough I was thinking about what constituted a 'hilly' and 'very hilly' route the other day and settled on exactly this definition - 50ft/mile ascent = hilly, 100ft/mile = very hilly; got to be something in it!

ColinJ

nasahapley wrote:

ColinJ wrote:

In imperial units hilly is about 1,000 ft of climbing per 20 miles. Very hilly about double that.

Funnily enough I was thinking about what constituted a 'hilly' and 'very hilly' route the other day and settled on exactly this definition - 50ft/mile ascent = hilly, 100ft/mile = very hilly; got to be something in it!

And as an illustration of very hilly, here is the profile of the forum ride that I've organised for tomorrow.



5,000 ft in 56 miles is pretty hilly. See you for the rerun in August !

phreak

Other than getting out an OS map is there a way of finding out the gradient of a climb?

avoidingmyphd

phreak, I do this:
make a course in bikeroutetoaster that starts at the bottom and ends at the top, then look at the summary page for distance / climbing. do the sum for the average grade, and look at the shape of the graph to get an idea of how much variation there is.

ColinJ

phreak wrote:

Other than getting out an OS map is there a way of finding out the gradient of a climb?

I can calculate it using data from my Garmin Etrex GPS. The Etrex can give a pretty accurate altitude reading when it has a good 'lock' on enough satellites, which it usually does. If I look at the tracklog generated by riding up a hill, I can see the distance ridden and the height gained so it is easy to derive the average gradient.

I don't need to do it because I have Memory Map software with continuous OS mapping for the UK at 1:50,000 scale. I can do the same thing on that without a tracklog to work from. I've compared figures for several hills calculated both ways and the results are very close.

phreak

avoidingmyphd wrote:

phreak, I do this:
make a course in bikeroutetoaster that starts at the bottom and ends at the top, then look at the summary page for distance / climbing. do the sum for the average grade, and look at the shape of the graph to get an idea of how much variation there is.

Ah, good site that, although it showed that what I thought were hills perhaps weren't after all