How Hilly

Mongoose1981
Mongoose1981 Posts: 28
edited September 2012 in Road beginners
What is classed as a hilly run folks, I did 24 miles today, felt really hilly, here it is
http://app.strava.com/rides/20358749
Does this class as hilly or not???

Comments

  • baldwin471
    baldwin471 Posts: 366
    I'd say undulating. The first climb looks to peak at 6%, so not very steep.
  • Jeebus, that first climb near killed me, oh well only my 2nd time out so will hopefully find it easier as I go. :oops:
  • Graydawg
    Graydawg Posts: 673
    You need to head on down to the Berridale Braes.... now that's a hill..... start overtaking some HGV's going up there on your bike, show them who's boss :D
    It's been a while...
  • baldwin471
    baldwin471 Posts: 366
    Jeebus, that first climb near killed me, oh well only my 2nd time out so will hopefully find it easier as I go. :oops:

    To be fair it is a long climb, so i'm not surprised it hurt. Personally i prefer short and steep hills as you can just bosh it up and get it over with. The long and shallower hills are the bastards.
  • Aye Berridale is a killer, cycled it back in my younger days, will prob be a good while before I'm ready to tackle it again.
    That first climb is a long one aye, I have a pretty mediocre time for it on Strava too, really didnt want to thrash it up there in case I ended up done in somewhere else on the route.
  • Pross
    Pross Posts: 40,213
    My rule of thumb is 1,000ft of climbing per 10 miles of riding for a proper hilly ride. However, you need to take sections of a ride into account - for example I can ride 20 miles to get to the hills and another 20 back which arefairly flat but in the middle do 3,000ft plus over a 30 mile section so the middle is hilly but the overall figure looks more undulating. As you get fitter your definition of hilly will generally change as hills tend to be daunting as well as a physical challenge when you start off. Even as a crap climber I often seek out the biggest hills on my rides for some reason!
  • Bobbinogs
    Bobbinogs Posts: 4,841
    Yepp, agree with Pross. A few other factors can come into climbing though including how tired your legs are and how punchy the climbs are. Just look at yesterday's stage in the Vuelta where the final 1 k had sections topping at nearly 30 %, depending on the riding line. That would be tough on any day but chuck in over 150k at racing pace on an undulating route prior to that and it must have been an absolute killer for them (heh, heh, heh...and I didn't I just love watching them suffer :) ).
  • StillGoing
    StillGoing Posts: 5,211
    baldwin471 wrote:
    Jeebus, that first climb near killed me, oh well only my 2nd time out so will hopefully find it easier as I go. :oops:

    To be fair it is a long climb, so i'm not surprised it hurt. Personally i prefer short and steep hills as you can just bosh it up and get it over with. The long and shallower hills are the bastards.

    It's long but only an average around 2% so not severe. Undulating at worst and I'm shite at hills.
    I ride a bike. Doesn't make me green or a tree hugger. I drive a car too.
  • I'd call that almost flat TBH although the first climb looks a reasonable gradient.
  • thefd
    thefd Posts: 1,021
    When you start out what you feel is hilly will later feel much easier. The hills never become easy - you just do them quicker.

    I do a run of 22 miles and climb 1500 feet. One of the hills is 1 miles long with an average gradient of 5%, and another has a climb of 0.5 miles but the gradient gets to near 20% in places. Now it is a killer!

    I now take them in my stride, but first time I did both I thought I wasn't going to be able to do it.
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  • I rode that road out of tongue onmy jogle a few years back, it is quite undulating and some parts are reasonably steep ,I would say its a hilly ride for your 2nd time out on a bike, we rode over to tongue and the hills got harder the closer you got to tongue, the worst one being as you turn inland after bettyhil.
  • Depends how long you've been riding and your ability If your a bit of a newbie id say well done
  • ShutUpLegs
    ShutUpLegs Posts: 3,522
    notlongnow wrote:
    Depends how long you've been riding and your ability If your a bit of a newbie id say well done

    Ditto
  • unixnerd
    unixnerd Posts: 2,864
    You need to head on down to the Berridale Braes.... now that's a hill

    Hadn't thought of that! Must be fun going down there when it's wet too.

    I think if you live somewhere hilly you just get used to them and learn what technique works for you. I used to dread Slochd summit (going south) but now I just get into my climbing cadence and it's OK.
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  • I have only ever driven the road west of Reay, but I can tell from there towards Tongue it is crazy, kudos for managing to cycle that. My next challenge going West will be to try and reach Melvich and back.
    Daughters birthday today so a well earned rest, legs are still tired, will probably get out another blast tomorrow or Monday weather permitting.
  • Your lucky to live in an amazing place for scenery up there, but from what I can remember there was not many roads so would riding loops be difficult? We just stuck to the coast road as that was the most obvious route.
  • There is quite a few roads, but aye they predominantly hug the coastlines. Probably gonna be at the weights tomorrow now so will do a cycle on Monday and try ramp it up to 35miles. This will involve a bit of planning as there isnt an obvious route, but im sure if I do segments of various, routes I can manage, and will take some food too. I was very close to bonking towards the end of this run, mad hungry, eat loads. haha
  • It very much depends on the area... if you ride out in the Lake District, it's very easy to exceed 200 or even 300 metres of climbing per 10 Km of ride (pardon my continental measures), while if you ride in the south east it's almost impossible to exceed 150 metres per 10 Km.
    The longer the ride, the more these numbers tend to level according to the geography of the area, obviously.

    These days I live in Richmond and head out towards the surrey hills, hence a hilly ride only packs in 100 m per 10 Km, given the way in and out are almost flat
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