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How flat are The Netherlands?



 
 
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  #21  
Old May 22nd 20, 06:56 PM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
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Default How flat are The Netherlands?

On Friday, May 22, 2020 at 8:37:13 AM UTC-7, 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.


"I haven't done them myself but I know you don't know what you're talking about"

Lawyers always show why people never trust them.
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  #22  
Old May 22nd 20, 06:58 PM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
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Default How flat are The Netherlands?

On Friday, May 22, 2020 at 9:01:34 AM UTC-7, Bertrand wrote:
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.


Canton Avenue in Pittsburgh is reputed to be the steepest public road in the
United States:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canton_Avenue
https://youtu.be/NWXNvuCAxrU


That road is so steep that it couldn't be paved and if memory serves it has brick surface. The hill district in Pittsburg was where the freed slaves were allowed to live. City fathers weren't about to put any money there.
  #23  
Old May 22nd 20, 07:04 PM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
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Default How flat are The Netherlands?

On Friday, May 22, 2020 at 9:09:10 AM UTC-7, Bertrand wrote:
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?


Lincoln Gap in the Green Mountains of Vermont has the steepest mile of paved
road in the US. Another brutally steep climb, not as well known, is Tanners
Ridge Road in Virginia, which climbs from the Shenandoah Valley up to Skyline
Drive.


Then come here and ride the Death Ride. Then tell us about some measly mile of steep road. I did the full Death Ride three years in a row - 130 miles and over 16,000 feet of climbing and I think that the lowest valley is above 5,000 ft.
  #24  
Old May 22nd 20, 07:42 PM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
JBeattie
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Posts: 5,870
Default How flat are The Netherlands?

On Friday, May 22, 2020 at 11:04:25 AM UTC-7, wrote:
On Friday, May 22, 2020 at 9:09:10 AM UTC-7, Bertrand wrote:
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?


Lincoln Gap in the Green Mountains of Vermont has the steepest mile of paved
road in the US. Another brutally steep climb, not as well known, is Tanners
Ridge Road in Virginia, which climbs from the Shenandoah Valley up to Skyline
Drive.


Then come here and ride the Death Ride. Then tell us about some measly mile of steep road. I did the full Death Ride three years in a row - 130 miles and over 16,000 feet of climbing and I think that the lowest valley is above 5,000 ft.


I did a five-pass Death Ride and finished top 20 (at least according to the signatures on the poster at the end) and also did the one-and-only six pass version, Death Ride the 13th, which was about 20K of climbing. I've also ridden the Sierra on many loaded tours and JRA. AND I've ridden all the ranges on the TransAm trail, including the Rockies and Appalachians. Having actually done parts of the Appalachians, I can attest that they are difficult and tiring. You can string together a lot of short climbs, and they will throttle you as much or more than grinding up Ebbetts or Monitor, although you will not be struggling for O2 -- but the Appalachians have heat and humidity and coal trucks.

-- Jay Beattie.


  #25  
Old May 22nd 20, 08:55 PM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
Axel Reichert
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Posts: 28
Default How flat are The Netherlands?

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!

Best regards

Axel

P. S.: Mouna Kea, Onion Valley Road, Mount Baldy and Mount Evans get
over 1000.
--
-X- | in memoriam John Conway
--X | 1937-2020
XXX | A glider from his "Game of Life"
  #26  
Old May 22nd 20, 09:01 PM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
Bertrand[_3_]
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Posts: 52
Default How flat are The Netherlands?

Lincoln Gap in the Green Mountains of Vermont has the steepest mile of paved
road in the US. Another brutally steep climb, not as well known, is Tanners
Ridge Road in Virginia, which climbs from the Shenandoah Valley up to Skyline
Drive.


Then come here and ride the Death Ride. Then tell us about some measly mile of steep road. I did the full Death Ride three years in a row - 130 miles and over 16,000 feet of climbing and I think that the lowest valley is above 5,000 ft.


I did a five-pass Death Ride and finished top 20 (at least according to the signatures on the poster at the end) and also did the one-and-only six pass version, Death Ride the 13th, which was about 20K of climbing. I've also ridden the Sierra on many loaded tours and JRA. AND I've ridden all the ranges on the TransAm trail, including the Rockies and Appalachians. Having actually done parts of the Appalachians, I can attest that they are difficult and tiring. You can string together a lot of short climbs, and they will throttle you as much or more than grinding up Ebbetts or Monitor, although you will not be struggling for O2 -- but the Appalachians have heat and humidity and coal trucks.


Yes, there are no high-altitude climbs in the Appalachians. And except for Mt.
Washington (which is closed to bikes except for the race), the climbs aren't
massive like some of those out west. But Whiteface Mt. (3566 ft gained, 8.4%
average), in NY rates harder than either side of Monitor (east side listed as
the toughest of the Death Ride at 3261 ft, 6.5%) or Ebbetts.

https://pjammcycling.com/climb/160.Whiteface-Mountain
https://pjammcycling.com/climb/217.M...%20Pass%20East


  #27  
Old May 22nd 20, 09:09 PM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
Rolf Mantel[_2_]
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Posts: 267
Default How flat are The Netherlands?

Am 22.05.2020 um 21:55 schrieb Axel Reichert:
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).


Another interesting quesiton is: which is the longest/steepest descent
without any sharp bends to allow high risk-free speeds?
I'll start with UK: the A166 drops 200m in 2.5km, out of which 135m in
1.35km https://www.strava.com/segments/905277 . This is good enough for
a top speed of 85 km/h (50+ mph) on the MTB, with one extremely gentle
bend that I barely noticed at 75 mph on the motorbike.
  #28  
Old May 22nd 20, 09:38 PM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
Frank Krygowski[_4_]
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Posts: 10,538
Default How flat are The Netherlands?

On 5/22/2020 2:42 PM, jbeattie wrote:

On Friday, May 22, 2020 at 11:04:25 AM UTC-7, wrote:

On Friday, May 22, 2020 at 9:09:10 AM UTC-7, Bertrand wrote:

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?

Lincoln Gap in the Green Mountains of Vermont has the steepest mile of paved
road in the US. Another brutally steep climb, not as well known, is Tanners
Ridge Road in Virginia, which climbs from the Shenandoah Valley up to Skyline
Drive.


Then come here and ride the Death Ride. Then tell us about some measly mile of steep road. I did the full Death Ride three years in a row - 130 miles and over 16,000 feet of climbing and I think that the lowest valley is above 5,000 ft.


I did a five-pass Death Ride and finished top 20 (at least according to the signatures on the poster at the end) and also did the one-and-only six pass version, Death Ride the 13th, which was about 20K of climbing. I've also ridden the Sierra on many loaded tours and JRA. AND I've ridden all the ranges on the TransAm trail, including the Rockies and Appalachians. Having actually done parts of the Appalachians, I can attest that they are difficult and tiring. You can string together a lot of short climbs, and they will throttle you as much or more than grinding up Ebbetts or Monitor, although you will not be struggling for O2 -- but the Appalachians have heat and humidity and coal trucks.


If I could change just one thing about bicycling in our area, it would
be the summer humidity.

I was once discussing the difference between the weather in the Portland
area and my area. I looked up data and found that on an annual basis,
they're fairly similar regarding annual average temperature, annual
precipitation, humidity, cloud cover, etc. (although we do get lots more
snow when you're getting cold drizzle).

But the other big difference is, when you get a heat wave, it comes up
out of a dry desert region. Your humidity is then low. When we get a
heat wave, it comes up from the Gulf of Mexico. It's brutally humid.
Your 90F feels like our 80F.

--
- Frank Krygowski
  #29  
Old May 22nd 20, 09:57 PM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
Axel Reichert
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Posts: 28
Default How flat are The Netherlands?

Rolf Mantel writes:

which is the longest/steepest descent without any sharp bends to allow
high risk-free speeds?


Well, as I mentioned I have ridden most of the big passes in the Alps.
By far the speediest I know is the Kuehtai (part of the famous Oetztal
Cycling Marathon) to the East. During the race, tons of hobbyists are
measured above 100 km/h. Fedaia Pass in the Dolomites comes next (also
to the East). Grossglockner to the North and Spitzingsattel to the North
also allow 80..85 km/h. Rossfeld close to Salzburg is also good (down
to Oberau). Susten to Wassen is not steep enough, even though it has a
very long (frustratingly so, when going uphill) straight stretch.

For me as a "tourist" (roads are not barred from traffic, I am not paid
to craze downhill), going over 90 km/h is exceedingly rare (Kuehtai,
Fedaia), even over 80 km/h happens only once in a while.

Best regards

Axel
--
-X- | in memoriam John Conway
--X | 1937-2020
XXX | A glider from his "Game of Life"
  #30  
Old May 22nd 20, 09:57 PM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
Axel Reichert
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Posts: 28
Default How flat are The Netherlands?

Rolf Mantel writes:

which is the longest/steepest descent without any sharp bends to allow
high risk-free speeds?


Well, as I mentioned I have ridden most of the big passes in the Alps.
By far the speediest I know is the Kuehtai (part of the famous Oetztal
Cycling Marathon) to the East. During the race, tons of hobbyists are
measured above 100 km/h. Fedaia Pass in the Dolomites comes next (also
to the East). Grossglockner to the North and Spitzingsattel to the North
also allow 80..85 km/h. Rossfeld close to Salzburg is also good (down
to Oberau). Susten to Wassen is not steep enough, even though it has a
very long (frustratingly so, when going uphill) straight stretch.

For me as a "tourist" (roads are not barred from traffic, I am not paid
to craze downhill), going over 90 km/h is exceedingly rare (Kuehtai,
Fedaia), even over 80 km/h happens only once in a while.

Best regards

Axel
--
-X- | in memoriam John Conway
--X | 1937-2020
XXX | A glider from his "Game of Life"
 




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