New Strava climbing challenge

Midnight Poacher

Hi all,
Just wondering how many of you have entered the new climbing challenge on Strava?
Do you think its a good one or should the challenge be harder/different?
How is your progress going?
9000 metres in 30 days btw.

bobmcstuff

I like that they're mixing the challenges up a bit this year, keeps it interesting.

9,000m in 30 days should be really easy, although I only did my first ride of the month yesterday and only did 300-odd metres. If end up close to making it I'll probably make an extra effort to finish it. I should really exceed it anyway unless I've been lazy.

robbo2011

I am nearly half way there already.

sloppyschleckonds

Is that a challenge or just a normal months riding?

ugo.santalucia

9000 in a month is pretty paltry outside Holland... for instance today I did this, which is not a massively hilly ride... but still 2 Strava Km of climbing, which is 1.7 Km in the real world

https://www.strava.com/routes/2079336

robbo2011

As you say, relying on GPS mapping to calculate the altitude will flatter your climbing scores as I think the estimates are sometimes as much as 40% out. the only way to keep a reasonably accurate total of climbing amount is by using a GPS with an altimeter.

PS. that ride looks like less than 1500m of climbing to me. I would still class it as a hilly ride though, as any ride which includes a 600m climb at >8% gradient would be a challenge for a lot of people, especially on a heavy old steel bike

ugo.santalucia

robbo2011 wrote:

As you say, relying on GPS mapping to calculate the altitude will flatter your climbing scores as I think the estimates are sometimes as much as 40% out. the only way to keep a reasonably accurate total of climbing amount is by using a GPS with an altimeter.

That's pretty much right... my simple altimeter is very accurate for what it is... you might be 10 meters out when you go up a major alpine climb, so the margin of error is somewhere in the region of 1%... on the contrary Strava estimates are wildly exaggerated, typically 30% out...

ugo.santalucia

robbo2011 wrote:

PS. that ride looks like less than 1500m of climbing to me. I would still class it as a hilly ride though, as any ride which includes a 600m climb at >8% gradient would be a challenge for a lot of people, especially on a heavy old steel bike

1.7 Km on my altimeter... the bike is indeed heavy, but not old... :?

The col d'Arlaz is a beautiful climb which I did today for the very first time... ideal in early spring as it's not too high... it's got a long section of 3-4 Km at 10% and only eases towards the top, with beautiful views of the opposite valley...

robbo2011

Sounds lovely.

hermanodaniel

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cgfw201

Needs a conscious effort to complete but shouldn't be out of reach. Rapha Rising is same amount in a week which I somehow managed last year and may be stupid enough to try again this summer.

Midnight Poacher

Got my 9000 finished in 5 days on Sunday afternoon. Pleased to say i was the first in Ireland to finish but that is because i have a hernia operation tomorrow so was kind of against the clock!

bobmcstuff

SloppySchleckonds wrote:

Is that a challenge or just a normal months riding?

Given the normal amount of ascent I do, 9,000m is somewhere between 750km and 1,000km of riding, which I would expect to be able to make without too much trouble assuming I was at home all month. However I rarely am at home all month so that does add a bit of challenge.

I managed over 9,000m in the "Everest in 20 days" one in November including 5 days offshore and a missed long weekend, which I was quite happy about.

homers_double

I guess an average weekend run is about 1300m and my regular morning loop has about 460m so it should be fairly easy to achieve this one if the ground stays dry.

bernithebiker

10 480m in one week in Mallorca!

marcusjb

Depends on where you are and the kind of riding you are doing really.

And they wouldn't be challenges if they were as easy as some think they are!

I'm being a bit of a hill-dodger this year as I am building up distances on fixed, so in the 2700km I have scraped this year, I've only done 16000m of ascent. Considering I have done 15000m in 2 days, that's a bit of a shock to see just how little it is this year!

I'll be swapping fixed for gears for a couple of events later in the year, but for now, I reckon this challenge won't be happening for me!

Actually - just looked, things aren't as bad as they seemed! I'm only 400m short of this time in 2013, when I climbed 115000m in the year, and a little ahead of 2014, with 85000m. Both of those years, had more distance on the clock as well. Maybe I am not dodging the hills quite as badly as I thought!

How Far is too Far

I ride in the North Pennines and Cumbria a lot, hoping to get this challenge finished later today. I think that amount of elevation would have been more of a challenge to the majority in 14 days.