What's a hilly ride?

[GLC1968]

You know, I used to think that what was 'hilly' to me didn't change (which doesn't mean that my 'hilly' is the same as someone else's 'hilly', of course). A hilly ride in the rolling foothills of NC is the same a a hilly ride here in the valley/hills on the edge of the Cascades. And I also use the terms 'rolling', 'flat', 'hills' and then 'mountainous' to distinguish amongst them (for my own records). For the record, I defined 'hilly' as 100 ft per mile by your categories, but that leaves 'very hilly' and 'mountainous' as rides that have more climbing than that.

BUT, what I am finding out lately that rides that used to be rolling to flat for me now feel decidedly hilly. Weight gain, lack of fitness, and lack of solid saddle time really mess with my definitions more than I thought they would. I think that these days what I used to call a 'mountainous' ride I would now call a 'I need to drive the car' ride. *cry*

[Thorn]

I actually keep feet/mile statistics. I find it an interesting statistic yet very subjective. I tend to think that if I have a gear that I can comfortably ride most of the hills in, then it wasn't too hilly (hilly, but not too much). If I run out of gears too often, that is a hilly ride.

Around home, that means 50 feet/mile (about the max I can get) is hilly if I refuse to use my low gears. But, if I use the right gear, 50 feet/mile is just a nice ride to me. I've never been on a ride with 75 feet/mile where I've had enough gears---yet--I'm still hoping for the day.

[kfergos]

I have to vote for "Totally subjective and unrelated to actual statistics." One ride might feel hilly one day and not so bad the next. If it FEELS hilly, darn it, it WAS! That said, the King's Tour of the Quabbin, with 7,000 feet of (extremely short, steep, rolling hill-type) climbing in 100 miles, qualified as Definitely Hilly in my book. I compare all other rides to that and determine hilliness from that completely non-empirical scale.

Plus, I usually just look at total ascent and maybe steepest climb, so I can't really choose one of the options because I don't know how my rides fall on that scale.

[alpinerabbit]

Gosh girls could you have done it metric? I had to do a spreadsheet! and ended up at 85 ft/mile.

[Biciclista]

please let me to be the first one to apologize for typical American "we're the only ones here" mentality.
i'm glad you were able to do the conversion.

[Crankin]

I use the same "thinking" as Kfergos, probably because we live in the same area.
Every ride I do from my house includes a 10-15% grade short climb to get home. My regular loop rides all include small hills that are medium steep (but short). There is only one ride that I classify as "flat" that I do out of my door.
What I have found is that what some people call rolling, I call hilly, but they are short rollers that are 5-6%. It's just that there's a lot of those around here.
I have done rides with 4-6 thousand feet of climbing that usually involve very steep climbs that are short, but come one right after the other. Those are "very hilly" to me.
Unlike others here, I liberally use my granny gear and last summer I saw 4 mph on Mudgett Hill Rd. in Charlton, MA. It was about 1.5 miles, with some spots at 18-20%. I don't care how slow I go, my goal is to get up the hill. I have only walked once, and that also occurred last summer, in Blanford, MA. It was about 1/2 a mile of 15-20% grades, which then crested, so I got back on my bike. Of course, then there was about 2 miles of 10-15% climbing, but I did that one..

[Zen]

I don't do numbers or use gadgets. I don't even have a computer on my bike yet. Not sure if I will.
I just ride.
Sometimes it's hard, sometimes it's easy.

[OakLeaf]

please let me to be the first one to apologize for typical American "we're the only ones here" mentality.
i'm glad you were able to do the conversion.

Oh, goodness, everyone posts in her local units, don't we? It certainly wasn't meant as an insult and I don't take it as an insult when one of the non-American gals posts something in km...

Anyway:

I can't edit the poll choices, but it's even simpler in metric,

50 feet/mile is close enough as never mind to 10 m/km
75 feet/mile say 15 m/km
100 feet/mile 20 m/km

Mmmmkay?

[sfa]

I'm not quite sure how to figure out all the numbers, but I count a ride as hilly if it crosses my mind more than a few times that I could be going faster if I got off and walked. Of course, with a good headwind, this can happen to me on nice flat roads.

Sarah

[papaver]

Gosh girls could you have done it metric? I had to do a spreadsheet! and ended up at 85 ft/mile.

I agree.

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

I voted 75 ft/per mile, because my rides are all round trips from home, so any big climbs also have their equally big descents. That brings the average for the ride down 'per mile'.

Besides, it said to vote for 'hilly rides' not 'extreme hills' rides.

[berkeley]

This is hilly to me. I think some of the hillier rides 'round here average in the 60-80 feet/mile category, but I'm not sure. All I know... is it's hilly.

[Caroline]

I agree.

Moi aussi ... Go metric FFS!

[shootingstar]

I'm such a duh in terms of hill elevation in our area. But finally answered this poll, after consulting dearie on some regular hills that I do nearly daily. I tend to know hills only by grade.

I dislike hills that are heavy road traffic hills ascending and there are 4-way traffic lights along the way. Nothing more annoying than breaking one's cycling rhythm.

[roadie gal]

I've never thought of it in terms of ft/mile, always in total feet climbed. Living in the mountains almost all of my rides are hilly. I have to go way out of my way to find a flat ride. An "easy" ride will have over 1000 feet of climbing in 20 miles.