How flat are The Netherlands?

On Fri, 22 May 2020 06:29:46 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

On Thursday, May 21, 2020 at 7:09:19 PM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 5/21/2020 10:05 AM, wrote:
On Thursday, May 21, 2020 at 2:56:08 AM UTC-7, wrote:
Maybe as a welcome distraction from the political and Covid-19 related mudslinging. We closed our Vancouver BC branch a year ago. Some colleagues moved over here and one of them is a close colleague now. I asked him what he found was special about The Netherlands. The first thing he mentioned: 'it is so incredibly flat'. Hmm... i didn't knew that ;-) and I paid attention during my 114 km ride yesterday in which I managed a total elevation gain of a whopping 124 m (Strava corrected value). I took a random picture along the route:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/1ssWbEvubmNiMxXf8

Yeah it is really flat I must admit.

have a nice day

Lou

Holland is so flat that most of the cargo is moved by barges on their many canal systems. Most of their cities and industries are built around the canals. While there must be some high spots they are few and far between. The windmill systems used to pump the water around so that they could go from lock to lock and keep the canals filled.

There are many places in the lowlands where there are hillocks that are incredibly steep as is often demonstrated in the Belgium classics and are also present in relatively flat Pennsylvania, but the majority of these places are flat. Those places are geologically unique.

"Relatively flat Pennsylvania?"

Honestly, I do try to let most of Tom's weird statements go by, but that
one is just nuts. I ride in PA quite a lot. I've ridden across it with
full camping gear twice. It is anything but flat.

I guess Tom has never heard of the Appalachians. Like most bike
tourists, I found they were much tougher than the Rockies, even though
not nearly as high. Passes we rode in the Rockies tended to be very
long, but mostly moderate grades. The Appalachian climbs are often much,
much steeper, and when you've conquered one, you're immediately looking
at another. (FWIW, Devon, England was much the same.)

We host Warm Showers travelers. We once had an interesting couple
contact us. They had just retired in the San Francisco area, and had
celebrated by biking cross country to Maine, their original goal.

They contacted us from Maine and said they had such a great time they
were continuing on to Texas, and asked if they could stay here on the
way. We agreed.

On the day they arrived, they looked absolutely beat. They said that the
hills of Pennsylvania, and especially the endless sharp, rolling
foothills in Western PA, were the toughest days they had their entire trip.

As to Netherlands: We biked there just a bit during a four day visit. I
think the toughest climb we had was a ramp on a ferry.

Frank, you're a moron. On your best day you're a moron. I live adjacent to the coast range. I ride the Sierra Nevada often and I have ridden over the Rocky Mountains bother in California and in Washington. You have trouble with the Appalachians in Pennsylvania? Are you available for Saturday children's shows?

One can only speculoate on who is the "moran"? After all, except for
your short military service you, as you say, have lived in California.
Frank, on the other hand has actually visited the Netherlands and
bicycled there, and yet you rabbet on about how flat Holland is and
the (amazing) fact that they use Windmills to pump water.

One can only assume that you once saw a you tube and now know
everything about The Netherlands while Frank, who has actually been
there is a moron.

You are, as the saying goes, "A real piece of work".
https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/a+piece+of+work
a piece of work
"A remarkably difficult, malicious, unpleasant, or objectionable
person."
--
cheers,

John B.

writes:

On Friday, May 22, 2020 at 8:18:45 AM UTC-7, Radey Shouman wrote:
writes:

On Thursday, May 21, 2020 at 7:09:19 PM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 5/21/2020 10:05 AM, wrote:
On Thursday, May 21, 2020 at 2:56:08 AM UTC-7, wrote:
Maybe as a welcome distraction from the political and Covid-19
related mudslinging. We closed our Vancouver BC branch a year
ago. Some colleagues moved over here and one of them is a close
colleague now. I asked him what he found was special about The
Netherlands. The first thing he mentioned: 'it is so incredibly
flat'. Hmm... i didn't knew that ;-) and I paid attention during
my 114 km ride yesterday in which I managed a total elevation
gain of a whopping 124 m (Strava corrected value). I took a
random picture along the route:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/1ssWbEvubmNiMxXf8

Yeah it is really flat I must admit.

have a nice day

Lou

Holland is so flat that most of the cargo is moved by barges on
their many canal systems. Most of their cities and industries are
built around the canals. While there must be some high spots they
are few and far between. The windmill systems used to pump the
water around so that they could go from lock to lock and keep the
canals filled.

There are many places in the lowlands where there are hillocks
that are incredibly steep as is often demonstrated in the Belgium
classics and are also present in relatively flat Pennsylvania, but
the majority of these places are flat. Those places are
geologically unique.

"Relatively flat Pennsylvania?"

Honestly, I do try to let most of Tom's weird statements go by, but that
one is just nuts. I ride in PA quite a lot. I've ridden across it with
full camping gear twice. It is anything but flat.

I guess Tom has never heard of the Appalachians. Like most bike
tourists, I found they were much tougher than the Rockies, even though
not nearly as high. Passes we rode in the Rockies tended to be very
long, but mostly moderate grades. The Appalachian climbs are often much,
much steeper, and when you've conquered one, you're immediately looking
at another. (FWIW, Devon, England was much the same.)

We host Warm Showers travelers. We once had an interesting couple
contact us. They had just retired in the San Francisco area, and had
celebrated by biking cross country to Maine, their original goal.

They contacted us from Maine and said they had such a great time they
were continuing on to Texas, and asked if they could stay here on the
way. We agreed.

On the day they arrived, they looked absolutely beat. They said that the
hills of Pennsylvania, and especially the endless sharp, rolling
foothills in Western PA, were the toughest days they had their entire trip.

As to Netherlands: We biked there just a bit during a four day visit. I
think the toughest climb we had was a ramp on a ferry.

Frank, you're a moron. On your best day you're a moron. I live
adjacent to the coast range. I ride the Sierra Nevada often and I have
ridden over the Rocky Mountains bother in California and in
Washington. You have trouble with the Appalachians in Pennsylvania?
Are you available for Saturday children's shows?

Tom, Pennsylvania is not flat, at all. It does not have the altitude
changes of the Sierra Nevada, but along the roads the hills tend to be
steeper. The Appalachians are not the Rockies, but they are actual
mountains. Pittsburgh has got to be one of the hilliest cities in the
US -- hillier than San Francisco, or Seattle, or Portland.

I know that Pittsburg has some REALLY steep hills but so does San
Francisco. San Francisco is the city of hills:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o..._San_Francisco
https://www.onlyinyourstate.com/nort...san-francisco/
There are a couple of main streets that are so steep that even modern
cars only drive down.

Pittsburg has an annual event that has cyclists climbing every stupid
climb that they have in Pittsburg. That doesn't mean that the riding
is all that fearsome otherwise.

On many of these hills the sidewalks are actually steps. They were
built this way because there was no way of building them otherwise. In
Pittsburg, many of the hill streets didn't actually have to be built
with those grades and they were only done that way so that they would
shed snow more rapidly.

Kragowski lived in Youngstown which is a flat as a pancake.

If you had said Ohio was flat I would not have objected. Not that I
know from Ohio.

On Fri, 22 May 2020 08:37:10 -0700 (PDT), jbeattie
wrote:

On Friday, May 22, 2020 at 6:29:49 AM UTC-7, wrote:
On Thursday, May 21, 2020 at 7:09:19 PM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 5/21/2020 10:05 AM, wrote:
On Thursday, May 21, 2020 at 2:56:08 AM UTC-7, wrote:
Maybe as a welcome distraction from the political and Covid-19 related mudslinging. We closed our Vancouver BC branch a year ago. Some colleagues moved over here and one of them is a close colleague now. I asked him what he found was special about The Netherlands. The first thing he mentioned: 'it is so incredibly flat'. Hmm... i didn't knew that ;-) and I paid attention during my 114 km ride yesterday in which I managed a total elevation gain of a whopping 124 m (Strava corrected value). I took a random picture along the route:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/1ssWbEvubmNiMxXf8

Yeah it is really flat I must admit.

have a nice day

Lou

Holland is so flat that most of the cargo is moved by barges on their many canal systems. Most of their cities and industries are built around the canals. While there must be some high spots they are few and far between. The windmill systems used to pump the water around so that they could go from lock to lock and keep the canals filled.

There are many places in the lowlands where there are hillocks that are incredibly steep as is often demonstrated in the Belgium classics and are also present in relatively flat Pennsylvania, but the majority of these places are flat. Those places are geologically unique.

"Relatively flat Pennsylvania?"

Honestly, I do try to let most of Tom's weird statements go by, but that
one is just nuts. I ride in PA quite a lot. I've ridden across it with
full camping gear twice. It is anything but flat.

I guess Tom has never heard of the Appalachians. Like most bike
tourists, I found they were much tougher than the Rockies, even though
not nearly as high. Passes we rode in the Rockies tended to be very
long, but mostly moderate grades. The Appalachian climbs are often much,
much steeper, and when you've conquered one, you're immediately looking
at another. (FWIW, Devon, England was much the same.)

We host Warm Showers travelers. We once had an interesting couple
contact us. They had just retired in the San Francisco area, and had
celebrated by biking cross country to Maine, their original goal.

They contacted us from Maine and said they had such a great time they
were continuing on to Texas, and asked if they could stay here on the
way. We agreed.

On the day they arrived, they looked absolutely beat. They said that the
hills of Pennsylvania, and especially the endless sharp, rolling
foothills in Western PA, were the toughest days they had their entire trip.

As to Netherlands: We biked there just a bit during a four day visit. I
think the toughest climb we had was a ramp on a ferry.

Frank, you're a moron. On your best day you're a moron. I live adjacent to the coast range. I ride the Sierra Nevada often and I have ridden over the Rocky Mountains bother in California and in Washington. You have trouble with the Appalachians in Pennsylvania? Are you available for Saturday children's shows?

Take your medication and stop being a DF, if possible. First, there are no Rockies bother (both?) in California and Washington. You mean the Cascades. And have you ever ridden the Appalachians? The northern range including the White and Green Mountains has some ferocious climbs, including Mt. Washington. Southern portions have less dramatic peaks but lots of them. I haven't done the segment in Pennsylvania, but it has lots of peaks. Even the more southern segments through Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia that I have ridden have some significant sustained climbs, but its mostly like doing steep hill repeats all day. Frank is talking about touring cyclists who had to do a lot of mileage across a wide mountain chain filled with peaks. Imagine doing Empire or Ice Cream Grade over and over. I can believe it was tiring, even if the peaks weren't that tall. Could you string together harder climbing routes in the Sierra or Rockies? Sure -- but these are tourists and not day riders
looking for a death ride. Really, if you travelling west to east, would you go over Monitor Pass . . . and then go back up?

-- Jay Beattie.

It might be noted that one may not participate in the bicycle race up
Mt. Washington unless one can prove that one has access to a motor
vehicle for the trip back down :=)
--
cheers,

John B.

On Fri, 22 May 2020 19:26:38 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 5/22/2020 5:41 PM, Axel Reichert wrote:
Frank Krygowski writes:

I'm interested in the L * p^2 metric for climb difficulty. I've long
wondered if there was a widely recognized way of categorizing
hilliness.

The easiest is the average gradient over the full ride. Whether you do
two big Alpine passes or 30 nasty hills in Wales, you might end up with
3000 m vertical gain over 120 km, so 2.5 % on average (this is quite a
lot). This is of course equivalent to vertical gain per kilometer: Below
5 m/km is mostly flat, above 20 m/km (= 2 % average gradient) is
tough. All this is of course kind of arbitrary.

If out of academic curiosity you want a binary distinction, there is a
physics-based approach: You could argue that it is mountainous, if you
spend more energy for the vertical distance than for the horizontal one
and flat, if vice versa. Since aerodynamic drag is strongly non-linear
with the speed, that break-even point between flat and mountainous
depends on your speed over the ride. It did this approximately for my
"sporty tourist" style of riding, and came up with about 12..13 m/km.

Pace has some vague guidelines

If you are after an estimate for the riding time, I have an
astonishingly precise rule of thumb. If you know your flat speed, say,
25 km/h, you can try to gather the length, the total climb and the
riding time for, say, 20 rides. Then you do a linear regression
(e.g. with Excel) on

t = l/a + h/b

with t the riding time in hours, l the length in km and h the climb in
m. a is your flat speed, 25 km/h in my example, and the regression gives
you your climbing rate b (total climb per hour). Say, b is 1000 m/h for
you. Then the 30 nasty hills in Wales take 5 hours 12 min horizontally,
plus 3 hours for the vertical wall of 3 km height. (-: Makes for 8.2
hours for 120 km, with an estimated average speed of 14.6 km/h.

Usually, with my coefficients a and b, the estimate is within minutes
of the real ride. Once you have your coefficients and think that this is
a great method for years to come: Now watch these coefficients go down
...

L * p^2 may describe a single pass or long climb, but we're much more
often dealing with a seemingly endless series of short steep climbs
followed by short steep downhills.

Downhills do not count. But L * p^2 can (and should) be applied
piecewise for a roller coaster ride. Since these often are steeper than
the epic climbs (and the gradient goes in squared) you will end up with
a higher total difficulty. In my experience this formula (originated in
a Dutch cycling magazine) does an extremely good job in predicting how
you feel after a ride, no matter whether it is Wales or Wallis.

If you are touring for several weeks in a row, I would advise against
going higher than 2000 per day. 1500 might be more reasonable.

Best regards

Axel

I'm very impressed that those ideas originated in a Dutch cycling
magazine. Back in the 1970s, when I began adult riding, American cycling
magazines contained similar technical thoughts. But now they've switched
to things like "The new bike you need NOW!" or "Shorts to make your legs
look sexy!"

Your post is worth saving and pondering. Thanks for that.

I'm not sure about bicycles but certainly it was common knowledge in
the running world that you never recover the effort expended running
up a hill when running down the other side. So, I would guess that
cycling over an undulating terrain one would have to, somehow,
increase the energy cost calculation for each hill.
--
cheers,

John B.

On 5/22/2020 8:01 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Friday, May 22, 2020 at 4:26:43 PM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 5/22/2020 5:41 PM, Axel Reichert wrote:
Frank Krygowski writes:

I'm interested in the L * p^2 metric for climb difficulty. I've long
wondered if there was a widely recognized way of categorizing
hilliness.

The easiest is the average gradient over the full ride. Whether you do
two big Alpine passes or 30 nasty hills in Wales, you might end up with
3000 m vertical gain over 120 km, so 2.5 % on average (this is quite a
lot). This is of course equivalent to vertical gain per kilometer: Below
5 m/km is mostly flat, above 20 m/km (= 2 % average gradient) is
tough. All this is of course kind of arbitrary.

If out of academic curiosity you want a binary distinction, there is a
physics-based approach: You could argue that it is mountainous, if you
spend more energy for the vertical distance than for the horizontal one
and flat, if vice versa. Since aerodynamic drag is strongly non-linear
with the speed, that break-even point between flat and mountainous
depends on your speed over the ride. It did this approximately for my
"sporty tourist" style of riding, and came up with about 12..13 m/km.

Pace has some vague guidelines

If you are after an estimate for the riding time, I have an
astonishingly precise rule of thumb. If you know your flat speed, say,
25 km/h, you can try to gather the length, the total climb and the
riding time for, say, 20 rides. Then you do a linear regression
(e.g. with Excel) on

t = l/a + h/b

with t the riding time in hours, l the length in km and h the climb in
m. a is your flat speed, 25 km/h in my example, and the regression gives
you your climbing rate b (total climb per hour). Say, b is 1000 m/h for
you. Then the 30 nasty hills in Wales take 5 hours 12 min horizontally,
plus 3 hours for the vertical wall of 3 km height. (-: Makes for 8.2
hours for 120 km, with an estimated average speed of 14.6 km/h.

Usually, with my coefficients a and b, the estimate is within minutes
of the real ride. Once you have your coefficients and think that this is
a great method for years to come: Now watch these coefficients go down
...

L * p^2 may describe a single pass or long climb, but we're much more
often dealing with a seemingly endless series of short steep climbs
followed by short steep downhills.

Downhills do not count. But L * p^2 can (and should) be applied
piecewise for a roller coaster ride. Since these often are steeper than
the epic climbs (and the gradient goes in squared) you will end up with
a higher total difficulty. In my experience this formula (originated in
a Dutch cycling magazine) does an extremely good job in predicting how
you feel after a ride, no matter whether it is Wales or Wallis.

If you are touring for several weeks in a row, I would advise against
going higher than 2000 per day. 1500 might be more reasonable.

Best regards

Axel

I'm very impressed that those ideas originated in a Dutch cycling
magazine. Back in the 1970s, when I began adult riding, American cycling
magazines contained similar technical thoughts. But now they've switched
to things like "The new bike you need NOW!" or "Shorts to make your legs
look sexy!"

Your post is worth saving and pondering. Thanks for that.

Actually, Bicycling in the '70s was not like that. It was pretty nerdy with Frank Berto talking about half-step plus granny and some pretty tame bike reviews, minor race coverage and lots about camping. https://www.bikeforums.net/classic-v...-magazine.html

It changed after the sale to Rodale, but then it changed more after the next sale.

I think we're in confused agreement. In the 1970s _Bicycling!_ (with the
exclamation mark) was nerdy but, to me, very interesting. I remember
things like an article mathematically analyzing the effect of wind speed
and direction on a rider's speed, and explaining why even direct 90
degree crosswinds slowed a rider. I remember Fred DeLong's article on
how to anodize aluminum parts at home, and his article "A defense of
650B tires for tandem touring." That was the first time I heard of that
tire size.

Rodale bought the magazine and dropped the exclamation mark along with a
lot of quality. One "technical" article was how to make your own toe
clips out of coat hangers. Seriously!

Then there was the offshoot Bike Tech magazine with entirely technical
stuff, much of it very technical indeed. I think Rodale had decided to
hide all science there and put only the sexy "go fast" stuff in the main
magazine.

When Bike Tech failed, we were left with a two wheel fashion magazine.


--
- Frank Krygowski

On 5/22/2020 9:27 PM, Radey Shouman wrote:
writes:

On Friday, May 22, 2020 at 8:18:45 AM UTC-7, Radey Shouman wrote:
writes:

On Thursday, May 21, 2020 at 7:09:19 PM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 5/21/2020 10:05 AM, wrote:
On Thursday, May 21, 2020 at 2:56:08 AM UTC-7, wrote:
Maybe as a welcome distraction from the political and Covid-19
related mudslinging. We closed our Vancouver BC branch a year
ago. Some colleagues moved over here and one of them is a close
colleague now. I asked him what he found was special about The
Netherlands. The first thing he mentioned: 'it is so incredibly
flat'. Hmm... i didn't knew that ;-) and I paid attention during
my 114 km ride yesterday in which I managed a total elevation
gain of a whopping 124 m (Strava corrected value). I took a
random picture along the route:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/1ssWbEvubmNiMxXf8

Yeah it is really flat I must admit.

have a nice day

Lou

Holland is so flat that most of the cargo is moved by barges on
their many canal systems. Most of their cities and industries are
built around the canals. While there must be some high spots they
are few and far between. The windmill systems used to pump the
water around so that they could go from lock to lock and keep the
canals filled.

There are many places in the lowlands where there are hillocks
that are incredibly steep as is often demonstrated in the Belgium
classics and are also present in relatively flat Pennsylvania, but
the majority of these places are flat. Those places are
geologically unique.

"Relatively flat Pennsylvania?"

Honestly, I do try to let most of Tom's weird statements go by, but that
one is just nuts. I ride in PA quite a lot. I've ridden across it with
full camping gear twice. It is anything but flat.

I guess Tom has never heard of the Appalachians. Like most bike
tourists, I found they were much tougher than the Rockies, even though
not nearly as high. Passes we rode in the Rockies tended to be very
long, but mostly moderate grades. The Appalachian climbs are often much,
much steeper, and when you've conquered one, you're immediately looking
at another. (FWIW, Devon, England was much the same.)

We host Warm Showers travelers. We once had an interesting couple
contact us. They had just retired in the San Francisco area, and had
celebrated by biking cross country to Maine, their original goal.

They contacted us from Maine and said they had such a great time they
were continuing on to Texas, and asked if they could stay here on the
way. We agreed.

On the day they arrived, they looked absolutely beat. They said that the
hills of Pennsylvania, and especially the endless sharp, rolling
foothills in Western PA, were the toughest days they had their entire trip.

As to Netherlands: We biked there just a bit during a four day visit. I
think the toughest climb we had was a ramp on a ferry.

Frank, you're a moron. On your best day you're a moron. I live
adjacent to the coast range. I ride the Sierra Nevada often and I have
ridden over the Rocky Mountains bother in California and in
Washington. You have trouble with the Appalachians in Pennsylvania?
Are you available for Saturday children's shows?

Tom, Pennsylvania is not flat, at all. It does not have the altitude
changes of the Sierra Nevada, but along the roads the hills tend to be
steeper. The Appalachians are not the Rockies, but they are actual
mountains. Pittsburgh has got to be one of the hilliest cities in the
US -- hillier than San Francisco, or Seattle, or Portland.

I know that Pittsburg has some REALLY steep hills but so does San
Francisco. San Francisco is the city of hills:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o..._San_Francisco
https://www.onlyinyourstate.com/nort...san-francisco/
There are a couple of main streets that are so steep that even modern
cars only drive down.

Pittsburg has an annual event that has cyclists climbing every stupid
climb that they have in Pittsburg. That doesn't mean that the riding
is all that fearsome otherwise.

On many of these hills the sidewalks are actually steps. They were
built this way because there was no way of building them otherwise. In
Pittsburg, many of the hill streets didn't actually have to be built
with those grades and they were only done that way so that they would
shed snow more rapidly.

Kragowski lived in Youngstown which is a flat as a pancake.

If you had said Ohio was flat I would not have objected. Not that I
know from Ohio.

I would have objected. Northeast and northwest Ohio are quite flat,
although the northeast is punctuated by some pretty deep river gorges.
Southern Ohio was never plowed flat by the glaciers, and it's lumpy
indeed. Flat routes are possible, but on some solo tours I've made bad
choices ("Oh, that road looks interesting!") and suffered.


--
- Frank Krygowski

Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 5/22/2020 3:55 PM, Axel Reichert wrote:
Frank Krygowski writes:

the Appalachians. Like most bike tourists, I found they were much
tougher than the Rockies, even though not nearly as high. Passes we
rode in the Rockies tended to be very long, but mostly moderate
grades. The Appalachian climbs are often much, much steeper, and when
you've conquered one, you're immediately looking at another.

Well, steepness correlates negatively with the length of a climb. I
played around with pass statistics a lot using the data from

http://www.salite.ch/struttura/default.asp?ultime=10

a huge database of 12000 (mostly European) climbs. Unfortunately the
English and German versions are broken for quite some time, so a working
knowledge of Italian helps.

An interesting question is: Which is the steepest climb for a given
length or (equivalent) the longest for a given average gradient? There
are not many of these "Pareto-dominant" (the mathematical concept behind
the question) climbs, some nice examples (this is not anecdotal evident,
but measured numbers).

- The village of Buitonne in Switzerland can be reached from the Rhone
valley. It is 2.92 km with an average gradient of 20.1 %. You read
that right. Riding this was quite an experience.

- In Italy there is Pozza/San Glisente, a dead-end road of 8.2 km with
17.7 %.

- In Austria there a five climbs from the Ziller valley to a panorama
ridge road. All sport 10 km 10 %. Try all for a nice day trip.

- In the US, there is Mount Washington with 12.4 km at 11.5 %. It is the
ONLY listed mainland US climb with a difficulty index (sum of L * p^2
over all sections, L being the length of the section, p the gradient
in percent) higher than 1200 (still bread and butter in the Alps, see
below).

- In Sicily, there is the volcano Etna with 40 km at 7.3 %.

- In Spain, El Teide, with 63.7 km at 3.6 % (sounds like Rockies ...)

- In the Andes, Conococha with 117.2 km at 3.5 %.

There are NO famous climbs ridden in Le Tour, Giro or Vuelta present in
this Pareto list.

The toughest fully paved one in France is the ski station Val Thorens
with 1396. All five climbs in the Ziller valley (above) are above
1400. The Monte Grappa in Italy alone offers 9 climbs from about 1200 up
to 1700. Italy has 28 climbs tougher than 1500, up to 2700 (this is
Pozza from above).

For comparison, the highest pass in the Alps, the Col de l'Iseran (48 km
at 4.1 %, steepest kilometer at 7 %) has a difficulty of a meagre
1094. The oh so famous L'Alpe d'Huez has only 1/3 of the length of the
Etna (see above), but roughly the same gradient. 913 difficulty is the
result, which is a Joe Average for the Alps. There are literally
hundreds of climbs more difficult.

On average, the French climbs are the easiest in the Alps (corollary: Le
Tour must have the best marketing), then comes Switzerland. Austria
builds tough roads, and the Italian roads are sometimes crazy. In all of
the Alps there are only 5 paved passes 10 km AND 10 %. Most of the
really difficult stuff are dead-ends.

Now I am very interested to learn which US climbs might have a L * p^2
difficulty higher than 1000. 5 km at 20 %, 10 km at 10 %, or 40 km at 5
% will do. And all climbs more difficult than, say, 1500 (a very rare
breed) will imprint a lasting memory into your brain.

Looking forward to your input!

I'm sorry I don't have any detailed input for you. But I'm interested in
the L * p^2 metric for climb difficulty. I've long wondered if there was
a widely recognized way of categorizing hilliness.

But I was wondering for a different purpose. For a long time our bike
club has made a point of describing the distance, pace and hilliness of
scheduled or proposed club rides. Pace has some vague guidelines
("Moderate" being something like 12-16 mph) but "Flat" or "Rolling" or
"Hilly" are undefined - because how could you define them? We left that
up to the volunteer ride leader's judgment.

We live where the glaciers once stopped, so rides to the north tend to
be relatively flat, while those to the south can be quite hilly. Once, a
new young club member led his first ride, a 50 mile ride heading south
that he described as "Flat." We were astonished that he could find 50
flat miles down that way.

It turned out he chose the route by driving his car; and with a gas
pedal, all hills seem flat! There was lots of good natured complaining
by the survivors.

But that does bring up a point: L * p^2 may describe a single pass or
long climb, but we're much more often dealing with a seemingly endless
series of short steep climbs followed by short steep downhills. They
beat a rider up without giving the reward of epic scenery.

I sometimes wondered about a rating system similar to the RMS metrics
used to describe roughness of machined surfaces, but never dug deeply
into the idea.


Perhaps integrate something like (1 + p^2)*dL over the length of the ride.
Limit p to only positive values.

John B. wrote:
On Fri, 22 May 2020 19:26:38 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 5/22/2020 5:41 PM, Axel Reichert wrote:
Frank Krygowski writes:

I'm interested in the L * p^2 metric for climb difficulty. I've long
wondered if there was a widely recognized way of categorizing
hilliness.

The easiest is the average gradient over the full ride. Whether you do
two big Alpine passes or 30 nasty hills in Wales, you might end up with
3000 m vertical gain over 120 km, so 2.5 % on average (this is quite a
lot). This is of course equivalent to vertical gain per kilometer: Below
5 m/km is mostly flat, above 20 m/km (= 2 % average gradient) is
tough. All this is of course kind of arbitrary.

If out of academic curiosity you want a binary distinction, there is a
physics-based approach: You could argue that it is mountainous, if you
spend more energy for the vertical distance than for the horizontal one
and flat, if vice versa. Since aerodynamic drag is strongly non-linear
with the speed, that break-even point between flat and mountainous
depends on your speed over the ride. It did this approximately for my
"sporty tourist" style of riding, and came up with about 12..13 m/km.

Pace has some vague guidelines

If you are after an estimate for the riding time, I have an
astonishingly precise rule of thumb. If you know your flat speed, say,
25 km/h, you can try to gather the length, the total climb and the
riding time for, say, 20 rides. Then you do a linear regression
(e.g. with Excel) on

t = l/a + h/b

with t the riding time in hours, l the length in km and h the climb in
m. a is your flat speed, 25 km/h in my example, and the regression gives
you your climbing rate b (total climb per hour). Say, b is 1000 m/h for
you. Then the 30 nasty hills in Wales take 5 hours 12 min horizontally,
plus 3 hours for the vertical wall of 3 km height. (-: Makes for 8.2
hours for 120 km, with an estimated average speed of 14.6 km/h.

Usually, with my coefficients a and b, the estimate is within minutes
of the real ride. Once you have your coefficients and think that this is
a great method for years to come: Now watch these coefficients go down
...

L * p^2 may describe a single pass or long climb, but we're much more
often dealing with a seemingly endless series of short steep climbs
followed by short steep downhills.

Downhills do not count. But L * p^2 can (and should) be applied
piecewise for a roller coaster ride. Since these often are steeper than
the epic climbs (and the gradient goes in squared) you will end up with
a higher total difficulty. In my experience this formula (originated in
a Dutch cycling magazine) does an extremely good job in predicting how
you feel after a ride, no matter whether it is Wales or Wallis.

If you are touring for several weeks in a row, I would advise against
going higher than 2000 per day. 1500 might be more reasonable.

Best regards

Axel

I'm very impressed that those ideas originated in a Dutch cycling
magazine. Back in the 1970s, when I began adult riding, American cycling
magazines contained similar technical thoughts. But now they've switched
to things like "The new bike you need NOW!" or "Shorts to make your legs
look sexy!"

Your post is worth saving and pondering. Thanks for that.

I'm not sure about bicycles but certainly it was common knowledge in
the running world that you never recover the effort expended running
up a hill when running down the other side. So, I would guess that
cycling over an undulating terrain one would have to, somehow,
increase the energy cost calculation for each hill.
--
cheers,

John B.

And the more undulating it is, the worse it gets. Aero drag goes up as the
cube of velocity, so you never get back going down what you lost going up.
I rode a gravel trail once that was apparently laid by someone who never
never used either a bicycle or a topographic map. It was constant up and
down, 10-15% grades. You’d have to brake on the downhills and have to walk
it up the uphills (fully loaded touring bike). That 25 km just sucked the
life out of me, but after we stopped for lunch, we rode the next 40 km on
old rail beds and streets at a brisk pace.

On Saturday, May 23, 2020 at 1:26:43 AM UTC+2, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 5/22/2020 5:41 PM, Axel Reichert wrote:
Frank Krygowski writes:

I'm interested in the L * p^2 metric for climb difficulty. I've long
wondered if there was a widely recognized way of categorizing
hilliness.

The easiest is the average gradient over the full ride. Whether you do
two big Alpine passes or 30 nasty hills in Wales, you might end up with
3000 m vertical gain over 120 km, so 2.5 % on average (this is quite a
lot). This is of course equivalent to vertical gain per kilometer: Below
5 m/km is mostly flat, above 20 m/km (= 2 % average gradient) is
tough. All this is of course kind of arbitrary.

If out of academic curiosity you want a binary distinction, there is a
physics-based approach: You could argue that it is mountainous, if you
spend more energy for the vertical distance than for the horizontal one
and flat, if vice versa. Since aerodynamic drag is strongly non-linear
with the speed, that break-even point between flat and mountainous
depends on your speed over the ride. It did this approximately for my
"sporty tourist" style of riding, and came up with about 12..13 m/km.

Pace has some vague guidelines

If you are after an estimate for the riding time, I have an
astonishingly precise rule of thumb. If you know your flat speed, say,
25 km/h, you can try to gather the length, the total climb and the
riding time for, say, 20 rides. Then you do a linear regression
(e.g. with Excel) on

t = l/a + h/b

with t the riding time in hours, l the length in km and h the climb in
m. a is your flat speed, 25 km/h in my example, and the regression gives
you your climbing rate b (total climb per hour). Say, b is 1000 m/h for
you. Then the 30 nasty hills in Wales take 5 hours 12 min horizontally,
plus 3 hours for the vertical wall of 3 km height. (-: Makes for 8.2
hours for 120 km, with an estimated average speed of 14.6 km/h.

Usually, with my coefficients a and b, the estimate is within minutes
of the real ride. Once you have your coefficients and think that this is
a great method for years to come: Now watch these coefficients go down
...

L * p^2 may describe a single pass or long climb, but we're much more
often dealing with a seemingly endless series of short steep climbs
followed by short steep downhills.

Downhills do not count. But L * p^2 can (and should) be applied
piecewise for a roller coaster ride. Since these often are steeper than
the epic climbs (and the gradient goes in squared) you will end up with
a higher total difficulty. In my experience this formula (originated in
a Dutch cycling magazine) does an extremely good job in predicting how
you feel after a ride, no matter whether it is Wales or Wallis.

If you are touring for several weeks in a row, I would advise against
going higher than 2000 per day. 1500 might be more reasonable.

Best regards

Axel

I'm very impressed that those ideas originated in a Dutch cycling
magazine. Back in the 1970s, when I began adult riding, American cycling
magazines contained similar technical thoughts. But now they've switched
to things like "The new bike you need NOW!" or "Shorts to make your legs
look sexy!"

Your post is worth saving and pondering. Thanks for that.


--
- Frank Krygowski

Don't under estimate the Dutch ;-) I had a subscription to that magazine.

Lou

On Saturday, May 23, 2020 at 2:19:57 AM UTC+1, John B. wrote:
rabbet
John B.

It really hurts my feelings to view your illiterate vomitings, Slow Johnny. Could you make the a bit shorter? BTW, a rabbet is an illiterate joiner's rough cut. The word you want is probably "witter", but since you won't know what it means, and it isn't apt to the person you applied it to, we won't insist.