Whats classed as hilly?

paldred
paldred Posts: 25
edited August 2009 in Training, fitness and health
What is classed as hilly? is is it the metres climbed or the percent? Can someone tell me what is classed as hilly 10 men time trial as well?

Thanks

Comments

  • nasahapley
    nasahapley Posts: 717
    As a rule of thumb I think over 50ft of ascent per mile ridden makes for a 'hilly' ride, and over 100ft/mile for a 'very hilly' one (or roughly 10 metres ascent per km and 20m/km in metric). Everyone will have different yardsticks though, which will largely depend on the terrain they're used to. Don't know about the tt thing, but I'd be interested to know myself!
  • paldred
    paldred Posts: 25
    Sorry typing error i meant 10 mile tt, would 120 metres climbing be classed as hilly in a 10 mile tt? if so what would be a goodish time?
  • freehub
    freehub Posts: 4,257
    I just look at a route on bikehike, if it's got over 5000ft of climbing I'd class it as hilly, the 165 miles I did on Sunday had over 8000ft of climbing, some people say it's not much in 165 miles, but it was rolling all the way out, then it was all the hills in one bit, about 80 odd miles of hills, I'd say they most of the hills where around 10-20%
  • Anonymous
    Anonymous Posts: 79,667
    paldred wrote:
    Sorry typing error i meant 10 mile tt, would 120 metres climbing be classed as hilly in a 10 mile tt? if so what would be a goodish time?

    That sounds like a 'sporting' tt, definitely not flat!
  • airborne_warrior
    airborne_warrior Posts: 199
    nasahapley wrote:
    As a rule of thumb I think over 50ft of ascent per mile ridden makes for a 'hilly' ride, and over 100ft/mile for a 'very hilly' one

    Give your head a wobble. 17 metres (50ft) of ascent in a mile is nothing. Not even two contour lines on a 1.50.000 map. Do you live in Lincolnshire or something?
  • rolf_f
    rolf_f Posts: 16,015
    Airborne Warrior wrote:
    nasahapley wrote:
    As a rule of thumb I think over 50ft of ascent per mile ridden makes for a 'hilly' ride, and over 100ft/mile for a 'very hilly' one

    Give your head a wobble. 17 metres (50ft) of ascent in a mile is nothing. Not even two contour lines on a 1.50.000 map. Do you live in Lincolnshire or something?

    You'd stuggle to manage anywhere near 50ft per mile in Lincolnshire unless your route was up and down Steep Hill all day long.

    A few weeks back I cycled from Helmsley around the NY Moors (quite hilly) then up over the top via Blakey Rigg and back to Helmlsey (very hilly). The route included at least 3 20% climbs and two separate climbs onto the moors and back off. Even that only averaged 60 feet per mile. Freehubs route is actually 48 feet per mile and I'd agree with him that 8000 feet is hilly. I don't think it is nasahapley who needs to wobble his head!

    My longest ride ever (so far) was after I finished Uni - that was Leicester to Essex - 105 miles. Climb per mile was 23 feet. Not the hilliest part of the country but general, mostly constant rolling hills. A far cry from the fens.
    Faster than a tent.......
  • Airwave
    Airwave Posts: 483
    Airborne Warrior wrote:
    nasahapley wrote:
    As a rule of thumb I think over 50ft of ascent per mile ridden makes for a 'hilly' ride, and over 100ft/mile for a 'very hilly' one

    Give your head a wobble. 17 metres (50ft) of ascent in a mile is nothing. Not even two contour lines on a 1.50.000 map. Do you live in Lincolnshire or something?

    In terms of a 10 mile TT 500ft of climbing would at least make for a sporting course if not a hilly one.If you were just on a training run or easy ride it would be a easy ride but not so when going flat out at TT pace.Every little bump starts to hurt.Just depends at what pace you doing 50ft in mile does'nt? :idea:
    TT photos http://www.flickr.com/photos/steverob/
  • knedlicky
    knedlicky Posts: 3,097
    paldred wrote:
    Sorry typing error i meant 10 mile tt, would 120 metres climbing be classed as hilly in a 10 mile tt? if so what would be a goodish time?
    I wouldn’t call 120 m in 10 miles hilly.
    The flattest ‘Hill Time Trial’, which I ever did, only rose about 120 m but it was also the shortest TT I ever did, only about 2.25 km long. Its overall gradient was 4.5%, with a maximum of about 8%. All my other ‘Hill TTs’ were both steeper and longer.
  • knedlicky
    knedlicky Posts: 3,097
    Airborne Warrior wrote:
    nasahapley wrote:
    As a rule of thumb I think over 50ft of ascent per mile ridden makes for a 'hilly' ride, and over 100ft/mile for a 'very hilly' one
    Give your head a wobble. 17 metres (50ft) of ascent in a mile is nothing.
    You’re right if that were all the climbing involved but I imagine nasahapley was speaking in ratios to applicable to the whole of a reasonably-long route. So using his ratios, he’d class hilly as minimum 500 m of climbing on a 50 km route, and very hilly as minimum 1000 m of climbing on a 50 km route.
    I think his approach okay, except maybe I’d use a slightly higher ratio to define hilly, maybe 12 m per km.
  • fungus_the_muffin_man
    fungus_the_muffin_man Posts: 1,608
    My 23mile route yesterday works out a just under 65ft of elevation for every mile. Is that an ok amount of climbing for a route like that or should I try and find myself something harder?
    Bianchi. There are no alternatives only compromises!
    I RIDE A KONA CADABRA -would you like to come and have a play with my magic link?
  • nasahapley
    nasahapley Posts: 717
    Airborne Warrior wrote:
    nasahapley wrote:
    As a rule of thumb I think over 50ft of ascent per mile ridden makes for a 'hilly' ride, and over 100ft/mile for a 'very hilly' one

    Give your head a wobble. 17 metres (50ft) of ascent in a mile is nothing. Not even two contour lines on a 1.50.000 map. Do you live in Lincolnshire or something?

    I agree that it doesn't sound like much - 50ft climbing in a mile is an average gradient of less than 1% - but then you have to remember that if you're doing a loop you have to get up and down those 50ft per mile. As Rolf F demonstrated, if you work out the actual ascent/mile of a route you think to be 'hilly', you might be surprised at how little it works out to be! For instance, if you think 50ft per mile is 'nothing' then presumably 100ft per mile is no great shakes either, but that's what the Fred Whitton is...

    So having duly wobbled my head, I still think the same. And Wharfedale's in Yorkshire, not Lincolnshire!
  • boneyjoe
    boneyjoe Posts: 369
    Some interesting thoughts. I focus on MTB, so not sure about the TT stuff. My road training route around Crystal Palace / Streatham however has about 900ft of climbing over 9.5 miles, so about 95 ft/m. Certainly feels quite hilly to me! Put this together, as legs were not quite getting strong enough on the normal / flatter London routes.

    Spare a thought though for riders at the recent World MTB Marathon Champs in Austria - 65 mile course with 12,210ft elevation = climbing off-road at 188ft/m for over 4.5hrs. Ouch. Sorry a bit off topic but thought it was an interesting (and I hope accurate!) stat.
    Scott Scale 20 (for xc racing)
    Gary Fisher HKEK (for commuting)
  • Mettan
    Mettan Posts: 2,103
    I'd go for ~ 65 ft a mile as being "hilly" - 50, clearly isn't flat though.

    (quite a nice way of looking at it actually :idea: ).
  • ColinJ
    ColinJ Posts: 2,218
    Come and have a go at Season of Mists from Hebden Bridge on October 4th - 2,555 m of climbing in 100 km (averaging 136 ft per mile)! Nearly the whole route is either uphill or downhill and it includes plenty of 15% - 25% climbs as well as easier ones.

    Here's the route profile:

    season_of_mists_profile.jpg
  • nasahapley
    nasahapley Posts: 717
    ColinJ wrote:
    Come and have a go at Season of Mists

    Y'know what Colin, I think I will. Looks good, and I need something in the calendar to keep me on the bike now that the weather's turning crap again!

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