An idea...like metric century challenge, but for climbing

davep1

So, I need to up my climbing, and to help/force me to do it, I was thinking of something like the MCC but for climbing.

According to my stats, last year my average ride saw me climb about 1000 feet, roughly 300 m. How about a kilo challenge, so once a month you climb 1000 m in one ride?

bernithebiker

DaveP1 wrote:

So, I need to up my climbing, and to help/force me to do it, I was thinking of something like the MCC but for climbing.

According to my stats, last year my average ride saw me climb about 1000 feet, roughly 300 m. How about a kilo challenge, so once a month you climb 1000 m in one ride?

An normal (not aiming for hills) ride round our way is what I call a "1% ride", i.e. 100km = 1000m climbing. Our group ride does this every Sunday.

norvernrob

Do you live somewhere fairly flat? My 19.4 mile training loop has over 1,000ft of climbing and that's the flattest route I can take, one of the Peak District rides we do is 63 miles/7,300ft of elevation. One we are looking at for this year is 105 miles/13,000ft but that's going to be horribly knackering (for our group anyway).

An average Sunday 50-60 mile ride is around 4-5,000ft.

Living in Sheffield and near the Peak District you have no choice but to climb a lot, I absolutely hated it when I first started riding a year ago but I learned to love the hills! There's no doubt that doing it all the time makes you better at it, I'm not an amazing climber but I've improved hugely.

deadhead1971

If you want to focus on specifically doing more climbing, a great way to do this is via the monthly Strava challenges.
There's one running right now, to climb 20,000ft (or thereabouts) during January 2015.

More details here
http://www.strava.com/challenges/january-climbing-challenge

Every ride you complete contributes to the total, and you see a visual indication and percentage completion, which hopefully motivates you to go out and do hill repeats until you hit the goal.
Or until your hurt too much.
Either way, it's all good and will help you improve your climbing.

chris_bass

bernithebiker wrote:

DaveP1 wrote:

So, I need to up my climbing, and to help/force me to do it, I was thinking of something like the MCC but for climbing.

According to my stats, last year my average ride saw me climb about 1000 feet, roughly 300 m. How about a kilo challenge, so once a month you climb 1000 m in one ride?

An normal (not aiming for hills) ride round our way is what I call a "1% ride", i.e. 100km = 1000m climbing. Our group ride does this every Sunday.

I think that would actually be slightly more than 1%, because gradient in vertical distance divided by horizontal distance and you 100km would be going up and down so the horizontal distance would be less than 100km.p

you might want to rename it the 1.XXX% ride :-)

bernithebiker

Chris Bass wrote:

bernithebiker wrote:

DaveP1 wrote:

So, I need to up my climbing, and to help/force me to do it, I was thinking of something like the MCC but for climbing.

According to my stats, last year my average ride saw me climb about 1000 feet, roughly 300 m. How about a kilo challenge, so once a month you climb 1000 m in one ride?

An normal (not aiming for hills) ride round our way is what I call a "1% ride", i.e. 100km = 1000m climbing. Our group ride does this every Sunday.

I think that would actually be slightly more than 1%, because gradient in vertical distance divided by horizontal distance and you 100km would be going up and down so the horizontal distance would be less than 100km.p

you might want to rename it the 1.XXX% ride :-)

:shock:

Er, it's just to give a rough idea?

My ride is not precisely 100.0000km with 1000.000m of climbing.......

davep1

I live on the north side of the South Downs, Ditchling Beacon and Steyning Bostal are my closest, hardest climbs. If I go out on the road, it's quite hard to do a lot of climbs without going into Brighton, or criss-crossing the Downs, but the roads over the Downs are quite a long way apart. If I go out on the mountain bike it's the opposite, the only flat off road route is dull as, so you end up doing a ton of climbs - with mud and slippery chalk to contend with, so although it is good strength training it doesn't replicate rod climbing.

I'm doing the Strava challenge, should be about 30% complete when I get home tonight, so on target.

homers_double

bernithebiker wrote:

Chris Bass wrote:

bernithebiker wrote:

DaveP1 wrote:

So, I need to up my climbing, and to help/force me to do it, I was thinking of something like the MCC but for climbing.

According to my stats, last year my average ride saw me climb about 1000 feet, roughly 300 m. How about a kilo challenge, so once a month you climb 1000 m in one ride?

An normal (not aiming for hills) ride round our way is what I call a "1% ride", i.e. 100km = 1000m climbing. Our group ride does this every Sunday.

I think that would actually be slightly more than 1%, because gradient in vertical distance divided by horizontal distance and you 100km would be going up and down so the horizontal distance would be less than 100km.p

you might want to rename it the 1.XXX% ride :-)

:shock:

Er, it's just to give a rough idea?

My ride is not precisely 100.0000km with 1000.000m of climbing.......

For heavens sake, think of the pedants!

chris_bass

double post

chris_bass

bernithebiker wrote:

Chris Bass wrote:

bernithebiker wrote:

DaveP1 wrote:

So, I need to up my climbing, and to help/force me to do it, I was thinking of something like the MCC but for climbing.

According to my stats, last year my average ride saw me climb about 1000 feet, roughly 300 m. How about a kilo challenge, so once a month you climb 1000 m in one ride?

An normal (not aiming for hills) ride round our way is what I call a "1% ride", i.e. 100km = 1000m climbing. Our group ride does this every Sunday.

I think that would actually be slightly more than 1%, because gradient in vertical distance divided by horizontal distance and you 100km would be going up and down so the horizontal distance would be less than 100km.p

you might want to rename it the 1.XXX% ride :-)

:shock:

Er, it's just to give a rough idea?

My ride is not precisely 100.0000km with 1000.000m of climbing.......

there is a small chance i wasn't being 100% serious!

bernithebiker

You never can tell round here.....

rolf_f

DaveP1 wrote:

I live on the north side of the South Downs, Ditchling Beacon and Steyning Bostal are my closest, hardest climbs. If I go out on the road, it's quite hard to do a lot of climbs without going into Brighton, or criss-crossing the Downs, but the roads over the Downs are quite a long way apart.

You need to be a bit more adventurous. Head North! Once you get as far North as Gatwick it gets a lot hillier. Not big hills but endless short ones. And a bit further gets you to the Surry Hills or the infamous Kidds Hill at Forest Hatch or the brutal little climb up to Ardingley from the reservoir.

I've never found it difficult to accumulate height down there!

davep1

Rolf F wrote:

DaveP1 wrote:

I live on the north side of the South Downs, Ditchling Beacon and Steyning Bostal are my closest, hardest climbs. If I go out on the road, it's quite hard to do a lot of climbs without going into Brighton, or criss-crossing the Downs, but the roads over the Downs are quite a long way apart.

You need to be a bit more adventurous.

Cor, that hurts! Checking my stats again, my average ride is 88 mins, about 20 miles at my speed. A lot of it is commuting, and as I have to be at my desk by 8.30, its lucky I am good at early starts! I have done Ditchling before work, but it is an hour in the opposite direction, so I left before 6 am that morning. It might just be an oddity of where I live and where I work that it is hard to get climbing miles in.

fudgey

I live near swindon wilts and struggle to do more than 2000ft in a 40 mile ride

My usual route is about 1600ft over 32 miles.
If i commute to work its 600ft at the most

Its a bit flat around here.

MountainMonster

When I lived in Austria, the shortest amount of climbing I could do during a ride was 700m, now in Cambridgeshire I can only manage about 200m in an entire ride, and that is with searching out each hill. Not good!

I notice it in my legs for sure now!