The Annual Lunacy Climbing challenge chatzone

[Dogtrousers]

Another one ticked off. Really nice ride, not hot, a bit cloudy, everything with a post-rain green glow.

Headed out to the Ashdown Forest for some lumps and then got a train home from Sevenoaks.

 

[FrothNinja]

Another one ticked off. Really nice ride, not hot, a bit cloudy, everything with a post-rain green glow.

Headed out to the Ashdown Forest for some lumps and then got a train home from Sevenoaks.
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Been vey blowy up here

 

[Dogtrousers]

Been vey blowy up here

Wasn't too bad yesterday. Apart from the usual perpetual headwind that accompanies me everywhere and makes me so slow

 

[Willd]

Cotswolds again

Including a couple of category 4 climbs Windmill Hill, Dovers Hill from Aston Subedge, Dovers Hill from Weston-sub-Edge and Ebrington Hill.

 

[Dogtrousers]

Just got back from a short hol in the Pyrenees. Once a year there is the "Montée du Géant" ride up the Tourmalet. There's a statue that is on display at the top of the Tourmalet during the summer months. In winter it lives at low altitude and each June it is driven up to the top, accompanied by lots of cyclists.

It was a grey day down in the valley, but up at the top, above the clouds it was stunning. It's a tough climb that saves all the steep bits up for the end when your legs are wrecked.

 

[Dogtrousers]

I just finished a ride from Hemel Hempstead to Marton in Warwickshire. 134km long and only just squeezed in over my 1,200m target. A bit of a contrast to the Tourmalet.

 

[bluenotebob]

I’d hoped to join this challenge a couple of years ago when I got a new SIGMA compteur fitted on my road bike. It claims to measure overall ascent – and it does .. but only if you set the starting altitude before every ride. Apart from having to remember to do this every time, I found it impossible for rides when I didn’t start from home – because I’d no idea what the starting altitude was.

Last month I bought a Garmin-style handlebar computer … an iGPSPORT offering: BSC300T. It’s proved to be bloody difficult to use but I’m getting there slowly with lots of help from Tony at the LBS (the older I get, the more incompetent – and frustrated – I become with new technology).

Hopefully I shall soon be able to start tracking total ascent accurately on some of my rides. I don’t expect that these figures will be huge: in fact, they’ll be very modest. Faced with a steep hill in full sun, I get off the bike and push it. My legs seem to appreciate the change of motion – which seems odd but I’ve noticed it a few times.

Which is all a very long-winded way of saying that I’ll post the occasional ride in the Lunacy Climbing challenge thread this year (isn’t it time to drop the ‘Simplified’ tag?) with a view to joining the challenge properly in 2026 (if the summer heat hasn’t killed me off before then).

My target for 2026 may be derisorily low – perhaps not much more than 200m … but, in my defence, I’m old and slow. If nothing else, it’ll add a bit more interest to some of my rides and perhaps encourage me to do more descents and re-ascents of river valleys (the Oust, Claie and l’Arz being the obvious candidates). We’ll see ..

 

[Alex321]

Last month I bought a Garmin-style handlebar computer … an iGPSPORT offering: BSC300T. It’s proved to be bloody difficult to use but I’m getting there slowly with lots of help from Tony at the LBS (the older I get, the more incompetent – and frustrated – I become with new technology).

Hopefully I shall soon be able to start tracking total ascent accurately on some of my rides. I don’t expect that these figures will be huge: in fact, they’ll be very modest. Faced with a steep hill in full sun, I get off the bike and push it. My legs seem to appreciate the change of motion – which seems odd but I’ve noticed it a few times.

"Accurately" is a very relative term here. These ones generally work by barometric pressure, and as that can vary during the course of the day in a single spot, the ascending and descending figures are not going to be completely accurate.

Most of my non-commute rides are loops from home, and with my Wahoo Roam, I have had differences in ascent and descent of as much as 7-8% shown at the end of the ride, and it is usually at least 1-2%.

My last such ride, on Tuesday, it shows 338m Ascent, 352m descent, so my house had dropped 14m during the 90 minutes I was out Almost 5% difference.

 

[bluenotebob]

"Accurately" is a very relative term here. These ones generally work by barometric pressure, and as that can vary during the course of the day in a single spot, the ascending and descending figures are not going to be completely accurate.

I'm sure you're right.

I've no doubt that exactly repeating a ride would give the same distance but a slightly different ascent/descent total.

It'll be good enough for me though as until very recently I haven't had a clue as to overall ascent on one ride.

Interesting comment on ITV4 a few mins ago ... today's TdF stage (in Normandy where the rolling nature of the land compares with the countryside around me) is the same as the Mont Ventoux stage in terms of overall ascent. So perhaps I'll be surprised at the ascent total on one of my longer (6-hour+) rides.

 

[FrothNinja]

"Accurately" is a very relative term here. These ones generally work by barometric pressure, and as that can vary during the course of the day in a single spot, the ascending and descending figures are not going to be completely accurate.

Most of my non-commute rides are loops from home, and with my Wahoo Roam, I have had differences in ascent and descent of as much as 7-8% shown at the end of the ride, and it is usually at least 1-2%.

My last such ride, on Tuesday, it shows 338m Ascent, 352m descent, so my house had dropped 14m during the 90 minutes I was out Almost 5% difference.

I also get some biggish variations on the same rides. What I may do is try and see what weather produces the variability....or I'll forget to do so...

 

[Dogtrousers]

Just back from a week in France. I bagged a 9th climbing lunacy ride for 2025 there, by riding along the closed roads of stage 6 of the Tour de France. Started in Sourdeval, joined the route in Mortain, followed it (via two cat 3 and a cat 4 climb) to the finish near Vire, then back to Sourdeval.

 

[Dogtrousers]

Snuck in another one. I had my eye on distance as I needed to get my 100km ride in for July, but I was pleasantly surprised to see I'd just managed to get my 1,200m target in (1,224m)

1,200 is a bit of a cheat because I can actually get it without trying (ie without choosing a hilly route) when doing a 100km ride. I may bump it up a bit next year.

 

[Willd]

Went to Melton Mowbray, yesterday. No major hills, but lots of villages called "something on the hill"

 

[bluenotebob]

Following on from my post upthread … I’ve been trialling my new iGPS device with mixed results. I’m not sure if I’ve bought a cheap Chinese Garmin lookalike or whether I’m just being impatient and expecting it to do everything I expect from it, without giving it – and myself – sufficient time. The prices of some of the Garmins were eye-wateringly expensive (I could have bought a new bike for the price of some of them) which is why I opted for the iGPS DSC300T (roughly 140 euros plus a further 25 euros for handlebar mounts for two more bikes). The plan is to get handlebar mounts fitted on another three bikes before the end of August but trying to get anything done in France in August is really asking for the impossible (supply chains fractured because of holidays etc).

The damn thing stopped working for a week or so. It turns out that the System parameters had been changed to ‘GPS OFF’ and ‘Cycling Indoors’ … how that happened is a complete mystery as I hadn’t altered any parameters. If it happens again, I know how to fix it – but it might also mean returning to the supplier for checking and possible replacement … which would be a complete pain.

As far as distance (and time) are concerned, it looks fine. Tested on three bikes so far and it’s consistent. One bike (my gravel bike) is recording slightly less distance than the SIGMA odometer but I think that’s a SIGMA calibration problem and it will be looked at later in August.

Elevation (total ascent + total descent) … tested on all bikes and it comes back with consistent results (whether the results are right is unknown but I’m reassured by the consistency).

Navigation … I’m slowly working out how to use this. The size of the screen is roughly 50mm x 35mm – which is really small. I’ve felt on several occasions that I need to carry my reading glasses in order to be able to read the screen display (rather than taking my cycling glasses off and squinting at the screen). Are Garmin screens a lot bigger?

@Dogtrousers .. you wrote in another thread that you found your GPS device (presumably a Garmin) “indispensable”. Mine is at best (so far anyway) a “nice to have”. Could you please expand on why yours is so important to you? – perhaps I’m missing something (functionality that I’m unaware of, maybe).

I’d be grateful for any comments/thoughts.

Thanks

 

[Dogtrousers]

@Dogtrousers .. you wrote in another thread that you found your GPS device (presumably a Garmin) “indispensable”. Mine is at best (so far anyway) a “nice to have”. Could you please expand on why yours is so important to you? – perhaps I’m missing something (functionality that I’m unaware of, maybe).

It's just that using the GPS now so ingrained in what I do it has made itself indispensable. That's just me. Others get by fine without them.

Sure I could live without it. But I like being able to plan detailed routes of a specific length and then not have to worry about navigation at all once I'm out on the road. Others like to wing it and go without a plan. Others like to use paper maps. Vive la difference.

Elevation (total ascent + total descent) … tested on all bikes and it comes back with consistent results (whether the results are right is unknown but I’m reassured by the consistency).

Consistency is all you can ask for. How would you be able to tell whether it was right or not? What would you compare it with? There isn't really any way of getting a gold standard for total ascent. Various methods exist and all differ a bit. If you choose one and stick with it then that's fine.