How hilly are your training routes?

mclarent

My standard route has ~1250 feet of ascent

Garz

solsurf wrote:

Live in the Lake District Staveley. Its just one big hill. For a quick killer it's right out of my house, right at Ings and then up the Kirkstone Pass and back down the struggle and home all in little over an hour and that is me pooped for the day!

I tell you what is quite a shocker after 70 miles of riding is bigland hill... :shock:

vorsprung

When I was training up a bit last year for the Mille Cymru, I did an extended commute with 1400m ascent over 60km

I live on the Devon/Somerset border

meanredspider

I'm another hilly commuter. According to Garmin I've done something in excess of 200,000ft of climbing in the last year (or nearly 7x the height of Everest) - I'm still too heavy at 94kg to be any good at it but I've learned to embrace it. Typical round trip is about 1700ft. I, too, would love to know what it's like to ride in the fens.

airwise

Last year I climbed just over 800,000 ft. I'm not sure it's good for you. Over the year I got slower and slower. A winter of riding pancake flat routes hard has really built up the speed again. I lost all my leg speed climbing mountains.

genki

airwise wrote:

Last year I climbed just over 800,000 ft. I'm not sure it's good for you. Over the year I got slower and slower. A winter of riding pancake flat routes hard has really built up the speed again. I lost all my leg speed climbing mountains.

That's a lot of climbing. I think mine says about 375,000ft over 5123miles, but I find my Garmin overestimates by about 10% once it downloads to GTC. But it works out at 420m an hour for every hour cycled, or 1100m evey 50 miles.

nmcgann

Pretty flat, but that's Cambridge for you

I prefer going hard on the flat or proper continental climbs anyway, none of this 25% UK rubbish :roll:

airwise

genki wrote:

That's a lot of climbing. I think mine says about 375,000ft over 5123miles, but I find my Garmin overestimates by about 10% once it downloads to GTC. But it works out at 420m an hour for every hour cycled, or 1100m evey 50 miles.

Crazy isn't it? I managed mine over a similar distance in six months. No work and all play! Just 120 rides so it worked out at 1000m ascent for every 37km cycled - the average ride featuring 2000m of climbing in around 75km. 140 cols. But from a fitness point of view, riding hard in the tropics over the winter on flat terrain has made far more of an improvement - even in my climbing.

kieranb

not very hilly nearby, I use the north downs for the hills. Just go faster on the flat if that's what you have to work with.

willbevan

im pretty lucky and live jsut off the forst of dean spring classic route, so can ride that a lot of the time. A good 90 odd mile ride will have 2700m of climbing in, if you want to cut out the flat bits you can get a good 2400m in much less distance.

Mid week short Club rides round here are not exactly flat , so a shorter 16mile route typically ends up to be around 500-600m of climbing

Some nice hills that are steep as well, so good variety

Eyon

I really have to look for the hills in the area I live, however just as I pass into Hertfordshire (12 mile ride from my house) things tend to get a little more hilly. Yesterdays 50 mile ride had 1950 feet of climbing, or in new money thats 80km and 594m. Its not a lot but without a long drive its nearly the best I can do.

Damn you east anglia!

StillGoing

ssk2 wrote:

micken wrote:

I normally try for about 1000 ft of ascent for every 10 miles travelled and consider that to give good variety for any training route or day out.

Bit of a newbie, but I'm doing about 1200ft (365m) climbing over 30 miles. Seems pretty pathetic compared to some here

Same here. Where I am has a few bumps but nothing that you folk in the Peaks, Wales, Scotland, Somerset etc would call a hill. I can cover 50 mile and not come across anything that you lot would call a hill despite it making me struggle. I fancy putting the bike on the car and visiting some of these places but I'd like to at least find somewhere that'd give an introduction instead of meeting something like Porlock for the first time. Hats off to you lot though.

AlainR

My midweek hill climbs ride tends to be about 45km with 1000m of climb

welton

Very fortunate to be living in the Dordogne, SW France which is a perfect area for all year training. Generally good weather, but with large daily contrasts similar to the mountains. In winter, it can be below freezing in the morning and creep up to low 20'sC just after midday. Summer temperatures can often be in the mid 30'sC - good for loosing just that extra bit of weight. Occasional heavy thunderstorms can make it interesting. The terrain is hilly and consists of mainly cat 2-4 climbs, and long enough descents to make high speed (70+kph). The REALLY BIG BONUS - very little traffic, sometimes ride for an hour or so without seeing a vehicle in winter.

freehub

Depends where I go, here it can be pancake flat, in Manchester it can be around 1000ft to 5000ft of ascent although I'm doing more flat rides and shortening my distance as the longer training rides have made me slow, strong on hills, slow on flat.

Aggieboy

freehub wrote:

Depends where I go, here it can be pancake flat, in Manchester it can be around 1000ft to 5000ft of ascent although I'm doing more flat rides and shortening my distance as the longer training rides have made me slow, strong on hills, slow on flat.

You need to go out with Bhima more, Will. He's brill at everything.

SteveR_100Milers

Someone posted that a 65 mile training ride was short and sharp!! training for what? RAA??!!

Live in the valleys, therefore all routes = hills. I do a nice (what I call short sharp) 20 mile loop around south pembs through the Havens, about 1800ft climbing but nice short "sprinters hills"