Climbing Club - May Goals

[SadieKate]

I'm usually the spatial errata.

June is my big month, targeting 20,000. With the Telluride to Moab tour this shoud be a piece o' cake, but all the estimates from 1998 (the year we rode this tour) were before the days of cheap barometric altimeters.

[jobob]

Goodness, I climbed about 22,000 ft. this month - I had no idea it was going to be that much.

The Wine Country "1.1 metric" was about 4000 ft, the ride up Mt. Hamilton with Cindysue & the Lunachix was about 5000. Yesterday I rode the Three Bears with Z, Melissa, Nicole & Kim, and then two-thirds of Team Darwin Award (aka_kim & I) continued on over to Moraga, up Pinehurst to Skyline & Grizzly Peak Blvd. and back down Wildcat Canyon and San Pablo Dam Road to El Sobrante, which worked out to about 3500 feet all told (tho it felt like more ) Those plus a lot of other rides in the 1000-3000 ft range really added up.

[SadieKate]

You animal!

On our way to Cantelow Saturday, we smelled a grass fire somewhere. I looked around for you and Kim, but nowhere to be seen.

[Shiraz]

Ladies,
If I am reading my garmin download right and adding my ascents I should have 27, 093 ft for May. Is that how you all are counting?

I got in another ride today of 41.79 miles of hills total ascent of 6158 ft. I rode from my daughters up Butte, then Pocatello Creek up Buckskin,around Rapid creek to Inkom then to Ross Park back up Satterfield to my daughters. I only averaged 12.3 mph today with the hills, oh well. I am so tired!

Sadie, have a great time in Moab and say hi to Yellow. You all have a great time at the LRRH. I wish I was riding agian this year.

[SadieKate]

Garmim elevation gains - it depends. If you read all the forums over at motionbased and tons of other websites, the barometic measurements can be somewhat high after you've used the gravity-fixer thingie in the training center or MB, and the jury seems to be mixed as to which does a better job. Overall, it appears from what I've read that the totals can be ok to somewhat high, but at least somewhere in the ballpark. I've only been to Boise a couple times but I don't remember huge mtns. Definitely some climbing and rolling hills, but nothing gigantic and long like the Sierras or the Cascades.

If you have the Edge or Forerunner which only uses GPS elevation, your totals will be really, really high.

Barometric altimeters are the most accurate but it even depends on the particular instrument itself.

[Shiraz]

Sadie, I don't live in Boise I live in American Falls which is close to Pocatello. I ride in back hills of Rockland and Pocatello. It is definitely not flat but I will check with other bikers to see what they are getting. I cetainly don't want to claim inaccurate numbers.

[maillotpois]

6158 feet in 42 miles is a lot if VERY steep long climbing. The Death Ride in the CA Sierra Nevada mountains is "only" 14,000 feet in 130 miles (to extend that logic, DMD is 19,000 feet in 210 miles). I try to plan my team's hard training rides so the climbing is a factor of ten of the mileage - 7000 feet for 70 miles, 8000 feet for 80 miles, etc. Those are HARD rides.

I'm wondering if there is something funky going on with your altimeter? GPS based altimeters give notoriously high readings. The barometric altimeters are more accurate than the GPS.

[Shiraz]

Very interesting. I did some checking on motion base and looked up Buckskin/ Inkom loop and indeed the elevation gain was 2592 ft over 37 miles. So my garmin is counting at least 2-3 times. So until I can figure this out can I look at the elevation at the start of your ride and the high point and figure out the difference to get a better idea? Thanks for helping me better understand and learn how the Garmin works.

So truely my climbing for May is really around 9 to 10,000ft

[maillotpois]

What sort of Garmin do you have?? 2 - 3 times increase is huge, and way beyond what you sometimes see with a gpos based altimeter. I wonder if there is a product problem. You should call Garmin. From what I hear, their support is very good. Even Motion Based adjusts elevations high, so if you are 2 - 3 times Motion Based, there's a real problem with your unit.

[Fredwina]

I think I need to get more realistic with my goals
May totals; 28,806

[easterbird]

Question re this device. I use the 'set real altitude' option every time I ride. Sometimes at the end of a 3-4 hour ride(when I'm back home) the altitude will be off(over what I set it before ride) by 20-50 '. Is that excessive?

I bought this to use elevation gain goal with you TE climbers. For May 14-31 I logged 14,000 per the VDO. Is it real? Has the June goal setting begun?

[maillotpois]

June goal setting is on a different thread.

I don't know about the VDO at all, so I can't answer that! Sometimes my Garmin won't quite get the starting altitude right when I start a ride from home (we live in a redwood forest and finding the satellites is difficult). So it can be off a few feet by the time I get home. I'm not too worried about that.

[Trekhawk]

Well I only managed one of the two hill rides I had set as my goal for May.
I guess meeting half of the goal is better than nothing.

[Starfish]

Guess I never officially reported in my May numbers...just over 14,000, so I hit my goal. Woohoo!

[SadieKate]

easterbird, I believe the VDO has a barometric altimeter. This is the best for determining actually climbing gains/losses. See my notes above about GPS-only units (such as the Edge 205 and the Forerunners as opposed to an Edge 305). As an example, yellow used a Forerunner 305 for the Little Red Riding Hood which reported about 2,500' climbing. My Ciclo reported 1,089 for the same course. Since this course is very, very flat, the 1,089 is the more accurate number.

Barometic altimeters work using air pressue so as weather patterns change the pressure changes. Just during the course of a day pressure will change. I think that 20-50' is pretty normal.

Just a note though for anyone thinking about GPS based computers, the GPS in yellow's Forerunner is far more accurate for distance and speed than the cycling computers based on wheelcircumference.