The Annual Lunacy Climbing Challenge Chatzone

[Sea of vapours]

@ColinJ I'd like to check a route with you before doing it, to ensure that it conforms to the rules (since I certainly don't fancy doing it otherwise! ) More precisely, it certainly conforms to the rules as currently written, so I'm making sure that it's OK by your current intention.

The current title does say 'loop', but the rules don't. Whilst I prefer loops, I have a plan for a route which starts at the apex of a 'V', goes to one top point, back to the apex, over to the other top point and then back to the apex again; so it's two out and backs to different points, ascending two hills on each of their four ascent routes. It's between two Dales valleys and will be horrible, at well over 30m/km, so feel free to say 'no' :-)

 

[ColinJ]

Feel free - I intend to do similar things if/when I get fit enough to.

I have changed the word 'loop' to 'section' in the description of the challenge.

I'm still building up very slowly. I aim to be fit again by the summer when relaxed organised rides might be possible again.

 

[Sea of vapours]

Jolly good. I'll look forward to attempting that then. It'll be 'fun'.

And here's another possibility which will be hugely entertaining:

That's the Kirkstone Pass, which conveniently has three routes, each of about 350m, up it.

.. relaxed organised rides might be possible again

I'm not sure that either of these will be either 'relaxed' or 'organised'.

 

[ColinJ]

This is one very local one that I have in mind... 1,000 m in 32 km out-and-back. The 4 main climbs are tough to 'very' tough (the Mytholm Steeps/Church Lane climb back out of Hebden Bridge).

It should be just over 1,000 m but if I think I have come up a few metres short I can easily add another 50-100 m on the hillside opposite Tod park.

 

[Dogtrousers]

Another fine morning grinding slowly up the hills of S London. Some spectacular early morning views over the City and in the other direction the mighty Ikea chimneys of Croydon. I didn't stop for photographs because the pictures always look rubbish.

I manged to get my overall ascent over 2.5% (or a Hilliness Ratio over 25) and the 1,000m ticked over at 37.1 km.

Going up Canonbie Rd two runners joined the hill as I rode up. I could hear the footsteps behind me getting louder. I did not want to be overtaken by a runner so I upped my effort level. I failed, he overtook me and I now have a new max heart rate to enter into various bits of software. Mind you I think I was in better shape than him at the top, he had his hands on his knees and appeared to be about to die, or throw up, or something. I didn't hang around to find out.

Unfortunately I noticed a minor routing infraction. A 100m stretch of Grange Rd gets ridden twice. I thought would be downhill but it actually has an uphill bit and a total ascent of 1m. So I actually "everested" that bit. I consulted the commisaires of my conscience and they let me off with a 200 CHF fine and a warning not to do it again.

Doing this makes me realise the huge challenge of Everesting. I could do this ride twice no problem. Three times - yes ... probably ... but would be no fun. Four? A real challenge, I don't know. 8 times? No chance.

 

[ColinJ]

Doing this makes me realise the huge challenge of Everesting. I could do this ride twice no problem. Three times - yes ... probably ... but would be no fun. Four? A real challenge, I don't know. 8 times? No chance.

In terms of total ascent, yes!

Once you factor in boredom as well - doing just one climb scores of times... aaaaaargh!

 

[Dogtrousers]

In terms of total ascent, yes!

Once you factor in boredom as well - doing just one climb scores of times... aaaaaargh!

Depends on the length of the climb, of course, but I'm pretty sure exhaustion would get to me well before the boredom did.

I would, of course, blame the boredom "I could have gone one, physically I was fine, but I had an unfortunate attack of ennui."

It's all moot as it's so far outside out of my capability as to be in the realms of fantasy.

 

[Dogtrousers]

As expected this is turning into as much of a route planning challenge as a riding challenge. This time I chose a pure out-and back route that doesn't cross or touch itself at all so every hill was both ascended and descended and each bit of road ridden exactly twice - out and back. (Except for a couple of small navigational bloopers where I took parallel routes out and back).

The 1,000m ticked over at just under 40km, but I had some less hilly bits before completing the ride which came out at 2.5% overall, or 40.45 km/ 1,000m.

I'm no sure how well my rides fit in with @ColinJ 's original vision for this challenge but for me it's absolutely ideal for providing me with a way of making rides around the tedious roads of SE London interesting, given the current restrictions (and my interpretation of them)

Hmmm I note that my elevation drifted up a bit during the ride, so I have 8m less descent than ascent, despite finishing and starting at the same place. Still, it is what it is. RWGPS is my gold standard so I can't doubt it.

 

[ColinJ]

As expected this is turning into as much of a route planning challenge as a riding challenge. This time I chose a pure out-and back route that doesn't cross or touch itself at all so every hill was both ascended and descended and each bit of road ridden exactly twice - out and back. (Except for a couple of small navigational bloopers where I took parallel routes out and back).

The 1,000m ticked over at just under 40km, but I had some less hilly bits before completing the ride which came out at 2.5% overall, or 40.45 km/ 1,000m.

I'm no sure how well my rides fit in with @ColinJ 's original vision for this challenge but for me it's absolutely ideal for providing a way of making rides around the tedious roads of SE London interesting, given the current restrictions (and my interpretation of them)
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Hmmm I note that my elevation drifted up a bit during the ride, so I have 8m less descent than ascent, despite finishing and starting at the same place. Still, it is what it is. RWGPS is my gold standard so I can't doubt it.

I think it's great!

I can see that the hills are a lot smaller than the ones round here but you did tackle an awful lot of them. I'm surprised that they don't add up to more like 1,500 m!

I wanted something to make my shortish rides more interesting so that's where I got the idea of cramming in the hills.

I wouldn't be interested in doing hill repeats more than a couple of times a year, so that is where the rule preventing repeats comes from. It might be good training to sprint up the same hill over and over but it would do my head in as much as it did my body in!

 

[Dogtrousers]

I'm surprised that they don't add up to more like 1,500 m!

It did! It added up to 1666 (Great Fire of London) metres over 67.4 km.

There are only a few really steep ones. Fox Hill has a 20% sign at the bottom (I don't think it's quite true - I think it's a bit less). Canonbie Rd used to have a 17% on the short Northbound section. Oddly, I'm prety sure that's an underestimate. I can barely turn the pedals while standing up on that. And of course a super fit cyclist chose the moment I was grinding up there to zoom effortlessly past me.

My next challenge is to see if I can design a 2,000m no-repeating-hills route with an overall of more than 2.3% or so. Will be tricky but I'll have a go.

Today included a short cobbled climb, Belgian style

 

[ColinJ]

It did! It added up to 1666 (Great Fire of London) metres over 67.4 km.

Oops, I wasn't paying enough attention!

Having said that I wanted to avoid hill repeats, I was just looking at a lumpy local loop for the other Lunacy challenge. It starts/finishes 18 km from here and is 12.8 km long so if I rode there and back and did 5 loops it would give me my 100 km. I think it would total near enough 2,000 m of ascent. I might try that ride once and see whether I can cope with the 5 loops. I can imagine the first 3 being bearable but 4 and 5 could be too much for my head once my body started whinging...

 

[Sea of vapours]

First one done. That was fair to middling hard work - OK, very hard work in fact! - not least due to having to get there in the first place to do the loop. The altitude profile is less insane than those @Dogtrousers has been enduring, though the climbs are a little larger to compensate. I suspect I'll be doing that again, if I try to actually complete thirteen of these, as I can't find many loops. Getting the ascent in a short enough distance is perfectly viable around here, but there aren't many roads, so ending up back at the start point is the planning challenge. I have four so far, and two of those involve going up a hill or two and back down (allowed, I know, but loops are more pleasing).

 

[Dogtrousers]

With lockdown restrictions about to be relaxed I decided to relax my own strict interpretation of the term "local" and do some riding about 25km from home. Ide hill sits on top of the Greensand Ridge, a little bit of high ground next to the North Downs and has plenty of locally famous climbs, and also Yorks Hill which is nationally famous as the home of the Catford CC Hill Climb, which is (or claims to be) the oldest bike race in the world. Or longest-running, I forget the claim. It's stupidly steep.

My last climb was Hogtrough Hill back up onto the North Downs ridge where I started. It's nasty because it's 15-17% right from the start and doesn't let up until you are about half way up. It's one of those climbs that I'm never 100% sure I'll get all the way up, and it still defeats me from time to time. I stopped at the bottom for a breather and saw a cyclist head up the climb. I started a couple of minutes later, grinding very very slowly up. I soon saw her about 50m ahead, walking. I never had to walk, but I never caught her. I don't think I even closed the gap. She was still about 50m ahead when she got to the top of the really steep bit, remounted and zoomed off. She may even have opened the gap a bit as my speed was definitely "any slower and I fall off"

 

[ColinJ]

I'm wondering if anybody will finish before I even start!

I'm planning to bring my best bike out of storage after BST kicks in next weekend. After that I will start tackling more demanding rides than I have wanted to do on my singlespeed bike over the winter.

 

[Dogtrousers]

I stumbled across this challenge, which is similar in some ways to this challenge in the route planning requirements. But it's also quite different, having a max of 100km ridden, rather than a min of 1000m climbed.

I might have go at planning a route like this, just for fun. But I know that it won't have the % climbing required for this challenge due to the need to move from one hilly location to another, on relatively flat roads.

For some reason this is hosted on Linkedin, which is rather an obscure location. This made it quite difficult to track down the rules, including resetting the password and blowing the dust off my Linkedin account.

https://www.linkedin.com/events/tulliolockdownchallengewithsimo6774719790280925184/

Simon Warren has set rather a high bar with 3504m in 98.4 km

Edit. I've managed to plan a 99.6km, 2,010m circular ride in my regular riding area. That took some planning. It includes one and a half Simon Warren top 100 climbs. Maybe I'll ride it later in the year.