List of UK sportives / audaxes with +3000 altitude meters

Christophe.cdb

Following from the discussion 'are UK sportives having a laugh' I was wondering which UK sportives are equivalent to the European counterparts...
I tried to look through the different websites but nothing allowed me to filter on altitude gain

Every weekend there are 3 to 4 events and it is becoming difficult to see which ones are comparable to mainland events.

Just listing down the sportive distance and altitude gain should suffice,
Please add rides and keep it as simple as possible (I am getting allergic to all these organisers spamming this forum :roll: )

The aim is to get a list that is an easy reference point

Name km Alt. gain

Ken Laidlaw 164 3400
Bealach Mor 143 3000
Tour of Pembrokeshire 186 3300
Autumn Epic 150 3000
Cumberland Challenge 190 3000
Tour of Black mountains 180 4000
Ryedale Rumble 178 3400
Fred Whitton Challenge 180 3900
Devil Ride 155 3000
Dartmoor Classic 160 3400
Dragon Ride 190 3000

stagger

I'd say- possibly none?

There are probably quite a few that come close or over eg Fred, Etape du dales, Tour of Peak etc etc. Things like the Bealach mor are touted as 3000m climbing but pretty sure it isn't really

i think thats the problem- different mapping systems give different answers and often the organisers will take a high figure to make it seem even more challenging than it is.

you could pick several and plug the routes into one system eg bikehike and see the relative difficulties between events. If you could be arsed.

gsk82

i would have thought that 3,000m of climbing here would be totally different to the same amount in europe due to the type of roads and gradients

Garz

..and taking into account size of this country with limited peaks/mountains to bump up the altitude gain for the sake of climbing stats.

bigpikle

Pretty sure the Tour of Wessex has at least 1 of the 3 days with >3000m of climbing. The last day is >10,000ft I'm sure, and you have >200 miles in your legs from the previous 2 days!

Bring it on....

bam49

I'm not convinced the Autumn Epic has 3000m of climbing.. Great ride and course but it is nowhere near as hard as say the Etape du Dales (3500m i think), or the Dartmoor Classic or Tour of Dartmoor.

Toby_W

Two hardest I've done are the Tour of Dartmoor and the North Cornwall Tor the latter of which is just under 3000m of climbing but goes up and down all the 1/3 hills along the coast so you get less benifit on some of the decents.

Cheers

Toby

vorsprung

In Audax land there are some events that give these sort of ascent figures

http://www.aukweb.net/events/

Lists all the events for the next few months, usually they give a climbing figure

The climbing figures can be misleading. For example the "Bryan Chapman Memorial (scenic)" 600km is 8450 metres ascent and the "Kernow and South West" 600km is 8200 metres.

The Kernow ride is much more difficult. The Bryan Chapman goes across Wales mainly on A roads. The Kernow ride visits the coast more and has hundreds of small climbs.

sub55

i am entered into the "Cambrian" next saturday which is listed as having 4050m of ascent over 200k

dead sheep

sub55 wrote:

i am entered into the "Cambrian" next saturday which is listed as having 4050m of ascent over 200k

I rode this event two years ago in fantastic weather. It was a stunning audax but it the 200km was a tough one but included some fantastic and unforgettable climbs up over the mid-Wales mountains. This event registers in my great rides diary.

The route to Machynlleth from Leominster was linear, so I naturally thought that I would remember which hills to preempt an attack upon during the return journey. That was easier said than done. All I shall say is, make sure that you are fed and watered before leaving Machynlleth and that 1800ft climb back up the Mountain Road to Llandeilo. It is a tough one.

PS. It is an easy route to follow with not many junctions to worry about.

Alain Quay

Etape du Dales, 15 May 2011

176 km, 3,540 metres

Ron Stuart

Climbing ha! this climbing..... http://www.aukweb.net/events/detail/11-321/

They do um tough out our way folks but if your looking something a little easier there is always the sister ride the same day.... http://www.aukweb.net/events/detail/11-45/

If you equated value for money as say height gained plus mileage then these would be hard to beat.

Frankly I think their mad. :shock:

Caer caradoc

This looks like a toughy.

http://www.aukweb.net/events/detail/11-287/

As I understand it, if you do not appreciate hills then avoid anything with Grimpeur in the title. This costs only £5 - substantially less than the nearby Etape du Dales at £40 per head!

The organiser has produced a route profile attached to the route card. It looks very spikey.

mrushton

Look for an audax with AAA marking and that should be hard enough and cheaper

graham_g

I'd agree that you're not going to find anything that's like the traditional continental sportive when you might have three climbs take you over the 3000m mark. However, I think that the best bet is to aim for those parts of scotland and south wales where the climbs are steadier as there's less need to avoid the 'busy' roads by routing through every 20% cack strewn lane in the vicinity.

Some of those audax rides are just mental, but if you're after a challenge and can live with a route sheet or GPS instead of actual marked routes then it's got to be the best way to get some proper quality riding in without worrying about entries selling out within hours/days etc.

young dog

Le terrier, well over 3000m. Quite a bit harder than Etape du Dales and,dare I say it The Fred.

Dr U Idh

The Skye Mor has just over 3,000m of ascent

stagger

Dr U Idh wrote:

The Skye Mor has just over 3,000m of ascent

its down as about 1800m on their website, which seems about right- thats what you get if you put it into eg bikehike

which goes back to my point higher up- if you read the blurb on a lot of the sportive web pages you'd think they were all as hard as each other when they're clearly not- (if you take amount of ascent as the primary indicator of difficulty- obviously the type of climbing will be a factor as well )

be interesting to get a list of m ascent from gps records of someone who's done most of the main sportives.

jamespiggot

I did the Autumn Epic with a Garmin and that came out to 2471 metres ascent, the Exmoor Beast was 2987 metres. There is a lot of room for error, recently rode the Puncheur (which is a really great event) and that was advertised as 1,700 metres ascent but was actually 1,275 metres.

Doing the Dragon ride this year so will be interesting to see whether that is actually 3000 metres?

For me the big climbs on the Etape and other continental sportives are easier as you can get into a rhythm with a fairly steady gradient.

maddog 2

my Garmin output suggests that the Fred Whitton is 3275m

pantsani

Toughest day I've had on a bike to date is the long route on Tour Of The Black Mountains, supposed to be 4009m.

Not sure how accurate this is but I felt like I'd done 4km of climbing by the end of it.

colinsmith123

Whilst not strictly a Sportive, the South Downs Way MTB Challenge is 100 miles of off-road and climbs over 3000m.

I thought it would be a laugh to do this in June. Now I'm not so sure.

wildmoustache

A few points:

- many of the Euro sportifs are races... mass start events.

- road surfaces are generally better over there.

- it can be much, much hotter over there.

- the nature of the climbs is very different - for some the Fred Whitton might be more painful than a big euro sportif, for others not.

It's not really comparing apples with apples just to look at distance and alt. gain.

graham_g

colinsmith123 wrote:

Whilst not strictly a Sportive, the South Downs Way MTB Challenge is 100 miles of off-road and climbs over 3000m.

I thought it would be a laugh to do this in June. Now I'm not so sure.

Now that is a proper challenge!

cyclechick69

How about this one.. Pendle Predator, 175km 3200m of climbing.

It's been going for a few years under the name of Pendle Pedal but has changed this year for some reason.
Route still looks the same and I have a few friends who have ridden it before and loved it.. it's definitely a tough one, but well worth it. part of the route was used last year on the National Road Race Championships so has been ridden by lots of elite riders..

www.pendlepredator.co.uk

vorsprung

I'm doing the Elenith audax this weekend. Starts at Wolverly near Kidderminster, goes to Tregaron. Excellent ride, 300km 4700m ascent including the Devils Staircase and the Cwmystwyth - Rhayder mountain road

slunker

Ullapool challenge.....130 miles and 3752m ascent. Possible due to the terrain in the north of Scotland.

sampras38

wildmoustache wrote:

A few points:

- many of the Euro sportifs are races... mass start events.

- road surfaces are generally better over there.

- it can be much, much hotter over there.

- the nature of the climbs is very different - for some the Fred Whitton might be more painful than a big euro sportif, for others not.

It's not really comparing apples with apples just to look at distance and alt. gain.

Absolutely...take the Marmotte for example.

5000 metres of climbing over 174km, and across at least 4 major climbs, and you can have 30 degree+ heat at the bottom and snow at the top. Nothing in the UK even comes close.

Christophe.cdb

I understand that the hills here are not going to be the 10 or 15k colls that you get in European sportives, on the other hand... it won't be a walk in the park either would it...

I am looking for some challenging rides... that I can try and do...
keep it coming...