Climbing and mileage.



cyclintom

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Jan 15, 2011
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On Thursday I should break 150,000 feet of climbing for the year and on Saturday I should break 4,000 miles for the year. This is despite having about four months off for one thing or another. For six weeks I had to take my older brother in to his eye doctor every other day. Then I had glaucoma surgery. Then it rained for almost a month solid. Then I got the flu despite having gotten the shot - it was a different kind.

Back before 2009 when I suffered a concussion I did 10,000 miles a year and so much climbing that I didn't even bother keeping track. That was nothing though since we commonly rode with Dan Tonelli, Danimal to his friends, who did 20,000 miles a year, year in and year out. And he worked 9-12 hours a day. He always rode all days on weekends and he was at all of the rides after work. He was a bookkeeper so you can bet every one of his figures was not only accurate but he probably never rounded any of his mileage up.

From the concussion I can't remember much of the start of the cycling group but I'm told that I was one of the founding members. For the first couple of years there were more women than men in the group. And we had a guy that was in his 80's that could ride away from the entire group. He was still riding like that in his 90's.

We also had one guy who took it on himself to teach routes and how to climb to new riders. Most of these people have now passed on to a better place - or else they were issued an accordion if they didn't go to a better place.

Keeping track of mileage isn't a very important thing but it does give you a little more excuse to ride more often and longer. Though the Death Ride and 300 mile tours and double centuries with over 20,000 ft of climbing are no longer my cup of tea. Maybe Seattle-Portland but no longer Seattle-Spokane.

In order to monitor your climbing you need to get an altimeter, but getting a speedo with an altimeter in it is more convenient.

So start keeping track of your mileage and you'll find it dragging you out on still another ride.
 
On Thursday I should break 150,000 feet of climbing for the year and on Saturday I should break 4,000 miles for the year. This is despite having about four months off for one thing or another. For six weeks I had to take my older brother in to his eye doctor every other day. Then I had glaucoma surgery. Then it rained for almost a month solid. Then I got the flu despite having gotten the shot - it was a different kind.

Back before 2009 when I suffered a concussion I did 10,000 miles a year and so much climbing that I didn't even bother keeping track. That was nothing though since we commonly rode with Dan Tonelli, Danimal to his friends, who did 20,000 miles a year, year in and year out. And he worked 9-12 hours a day. He always rode all days on weekends and he was at all of the rides after work. He was a bookkeeper so you can bet every one of his figures was not only accurate but he probably never rounded any of his mileage up.

From the concussion I can't remember much of the start of the cycling group but I'm told that I was one of the founding members. For the first couple of years there were more women than men in the group. And we had a guy that was in his 80's that could ride away from the entire group. He was still riding like that in his 90's.

We also had one guy who took it on himself to teach routes and how to climb to new riders. Most of these people have now passed on to a better place - or else they were issued an accordion if they didn't go to a better place.

Keeping track of mileage isn't a very important thing but it does give you a little more excuse to ride more often and longer. Though the Death Ride and 300 mile tours and double centuries with over 20,000 ft of climbing are no longer my cup of tea. Maybe Seattle-Portland but no longer Seattle-Spokane.

In order to monitor your climbing you need to get an altimeter, but getting a speedo with an altimeter in it is more convenient.

So start keeping track of your mileage and you'll find it dragging you out on still another ride.

I know the feeling of accomplishment first hand, as I'm within days of setting a record for myself of climbing 500,000' in a season (9 months)! I'm currently at 491,000' and will nail it in the next two days. So an early congratulations to you!
 
Congratulations. We had a man telling us he was making 300,000 ft of climbing a year by climbing Tunnel Rd. once a week. That is a 700 ft climb. Let's see, 52 x 700 is surely 300,000 surely by his math. Are you another of those with a millennial math education?
 
Who needs math when we have Strava, but the 300,000' guy would need 429 of his Tunnel Rd climbs a year to reach his apparent goal!

My secondary goal is to reach 100 miles of gain (528,000') by the end of the year, but I won't be able to add to the vert for 7 of the remaining 9 weeks, so that leaves me with 2 weeks to get 28'000' (but on an indoor trainer and zwift)...we'll see.

Anyway, sorry cyclintom for hijacking your thread, and good luck on your endeavor.
 
Who needs math when we have Strava, but the 300,000' guy would need 429 of his Tunnel Rd climbs a year to reach his apparent goal!

My secondary goal is to reach 100 miles of gain (528,000') by the end of the year, but I won't be able to add to the vert for 7 of the remaining 9 weeks, so that leaves me with 2 weeks to get 28'000' (but on an indoor trainer and zwift)...we'll see.

Anyway, sorry cyclintom for hijacking your thread, and good luck on your endeavor.
I'm trying to understand what you're saying - that you are getting climbing footage on an indoor trainer? I'm sure that you can get a lot of resistance but that isn't the same as climbing.

A week ago as I started up a rather mild 5% climb I was passed by a young woman who was apparently going to work since she had a knapsack on. Where I would have normally gone up that climb at 7 mph I did it at 10 and 11 mph trying to use her as a pacer. I do not draft other people since I have no desire to crash if they swerve around some glass or other road debris. So I stay maybe 100 feet back. This is a 700 foot climb. Going down the other side I had to back off because few people descend like me and I don't like passing people as other seem to find great joy in.

Though I will pass smart asses when I feel like it. I had done a really hard climb of 9% for over a mile ending up with 12%, descending the other side then coming back which was not as difficult but not easy either. As I left that road there was a guy who looked like he was returning from a century so I paced off of him. Then some *** with a Death Ride jersey came up and rode along with us until we came to a mild hill that I normally climb in the big ring. He came tearing around us that rode past that guy in front so closely that it ****** me off. I normally ride up this hill at about 12 mph but I went by him at 21 mph and as the hill starts flattening out went up to 25 and rode to the top where there's a stop light. I pulled across on a green and stopped. This guy rode up with a long expression on his face and passed without looking at me. I waited for the other guy and rode into town behind him.

This isn't the sort of thing that you can do on a resistance trainer.
 
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I'm trying to understand what you're saying - that you are getting climbing footage on an indoor trainer? I'm sure that you can get a lot of resistance but that isn't the same as climbing.... a long expression on his face and passed without looking at me. I waited for the other guy and rode into town behind him. This isn't the sort of thing that you can do on a resistance trainer.

Buy and use a Tacx Neo trainer and join (and ride) zwift - more specifically the zwift races - and you'll likely come to realize that elevation gain in this scenario is actually slightly MORE difficult than open road climbing, as somehow there is less momentum between pedal strokes as opposed to riding in the real, and requires a more round/complete pedal stroke!
 
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Buy and use a Tacx Neo trainer and join (and ride) zwift - more specifically the zwift races - and you'll likely come to realize that elevation gain in this scenario is actually slightly MORE difficult than open road climbing, as somehow there is less momentum between pedal strokes as opposed to riding in the real, and requires a more round/complete pedal stroke!
That is a video game. I wonder how long Froome plays video games.
 
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