I sometimes wonder whether the awesome climbs are worth doing. Last year I had this fixation with trying to seek out the steepest, most gruesome climbs I could find. Trouble is that kind of training is pretty brutal on the knees and my own started to ache after a while.
Another point is that climbing really steep hills makes up a very small percentage of what you're supposed to do on a bike. O.K. there's plenty of climbing in the TDF and it's usually the best climbers and time-trialers that win the event but, let's face it, TDF climbs aren't incredibly steep, just long. Lance Armstrong rated the worst TDF climbs at around 7 per cent (only very small sections being at 14 per cent).
These days I do less of the really steep hills and prefer to seek out medium hills that are very long. I find these more beneficial than when I used to bust my ass up corkscrew climbs with a purple face. Don't know if any of you relate to that line of thought.
Another point is that climbing really steep hills makes up a very small percentage of what you're supposed to do on a bike. O.K. there's plenty of climbing in the TDF and it's usually the best climbers and time-trialers that win the event but, let's face it, TDF climbs aren't incredibly steep, just long. Lance Armstrong rated the worst TDF climbs at around 7 per cent (only very small sections being at 14 per cent).
These days I do less of the really steep hills and prefer to seek out medium hills that are very long. I find these more beneficial than when I used to bust my ass up corkscrew climbs with a purple face. Don't know if any of you relate to that line of thought.
BlueIcarus said:Talking about Angliru....
This is it's graph and info
http://www.altimetrias.com/aspbk/verPuertoGB.asp?id=257
Now... this is hard, huh?
(checkout this 23.5% piece near the end :O )