CAT 1 Climbs In Dublin / Wicklow area

IronmanJNR

Ive started to cycle in the dublin/wicklow mountains a bit lately , And use a Garmin watch to track my progress.

I then usally transfer data to imapmyride , which gives a more detailed info on route , cat climbs ect ..

What i still have never managed to find is a CAT 1 Climb .. I know there must be plenty out there in that area , but where ??

Already i hear people saying Sallys Gap !!! CAT 2 according to Imapmyride
Ashford Hill CAT 2 !!

Any ideas ??
Map of route would be nice

Cheers

Lumen

Kilmashogue Lane
http://app.strava.com/segments/631099

CillianL

I race myself and so I've an idea of whats hard and what isn't.
The three hardest climbs I know of are in around Dublin

1. Bohernabreena hill climb
2.Howth Head from church street
3 . Climb to Piperstown from Bohernabreena

The only things is that they're very punchy so they're good for explosive work but are not long and drawn out i.e they last less than 10 minutes unless you're a Fred

Lumen

CillianL wrote: »

...Bohernabreena hill climb...less than 10 minutes unless you're a Fred

http://app.strava.com/segments/652111

joker77

This is a nice one that I like for training - not sure what Cat it would be - anyone able to tell me? It's long and steady, not particularly steep

http://app.strava.com/segments/633001

buffalo

Lumen wrote: »

http://app.strava.com/segments/652111

Sherlock, the ultimate Fred.

mcgratheoin

IronmanJNR wrote: »

I
What i still have never managed to find is a CAT 1 Climb .. I know there must be plenty out there in that area , but where ??

Nope - based on Grand Tour criteria there are very very few Category 1 and no HC category climbs in Ireland (afaik).

If you go to strava you can search the map excluding whichever categories you want, and you'll find that anything listed as HC is not actually a bike climb, it's somebody posting up a hike or mountain climb on the site.

zanibike has Borris to the mast at Mt. Leinster as the hardest climb in the country and that's a Cat 1.

Lumen

joker77 wrote: »

This is a nice one that I like for training - not sure what Cat it would be - anyone able to tell me? It's long and steady, not particularly steep

http://app.strava.com/segments/633001

The original approach to categorising climbs was which gear you'd pick driving up it (cat 1 = 1st gear), but there really isn't anything long AND steep enough around Wicklow to match stuff on the continent.

10% is when things start to get interesting, IMO. That segment gets near that at the top.

mcgratheoin

joker77 wrote: »

This is a nice one that I like for training - not sure what Cat it would be - anyone able to tell me? It's long and steady, not particularly steep

http://app.strava.com/segments/633001

Strava says no category. If a climb is categorised it'll be listed on strava as such - check out the climb posted by Lumen - it's a Cat 2

joker77

Cheers. Looks like I have to start training on steeper hills... no excuse now

Jawgap

CillianL wrote: »

I race myself and so I've an idea of whats hard and what isn't.
The three hardest climbs I know of are in around Dublin

1. Bohernabreena hill climb
2.Howth Head from church street
3 . Climb to Piperstown from Bohernabreena

The only things is that they're very punchy so they're good for explosive work but are not long and drawn out i.e they last less than 10 minutes unless you're a Fred

Well just call me Fred McFred from Fred City:)

You might get some ideas here

http://www.climbbybike.com/

Mt Leinster is rated as the toughest climb in Ireland on this site

Lumen

mcgratheoin wrote: »

Strava says no category. If a climb is categorised it'll be listed on strava as such - check out the climb posted by Lumen - it's a Cat 2

Hmmm. Strava lists Bohernabreena as a cat 2 and Kilmashogue as a cat 3.

Having "raced" up both, Kilmashogue is far, far harder.

IronmanJNR

mcgratheoin wrote: »

Nope - based on Grand Tour criteria there are very very few Category 1 and no HC category climbs in Ireland (afaik).

If you go to strava you can search the map excluding whichever categories you want, and you'll find that anything listed as HC is not actually a bike climb, it's somebody posting up a hike or mountain climb on the site.

zanibike has Borris to the mast at Mt. Leinster as the hardest climb in the country and that's a Cat 1.

Cheers Dude

Idleater

Lumen wrote: »

10% is when things start to get interesting, IMO. That segment gets near that at the top.

Man how overjoyed I was seeing the 9.5% sur 1km after the 12% km on the Marie Blanque only to be shown 13.5% followed by 13% kms. I think my strava segment shows my pace at 6kmph :O

mcgratheoin

Lumen wrote: »

Hmmm. Strava lists Bohernabreena as a cat 2 and Kilmashogue as a cat 3.

Having "raced" up both, Kilmashogue is far, far harder.

not sure how they calculate categories. zanibike has a (fairly complicated) formula that takes loads of different things into account.

Link here

I haven't had time to sit down and work out how to apply it to the data files you can pull out of mapmyride and other sites, but if somebody wants to write a little formula to plug into excel, then we could properly compare climbs.

IronmanJNR

Jawgap wrote: »

Well just call me Fred McFred from Fred City:)

You might get some ideas here

http://www.climbbybike.com/

Mt Leinster is rated as the toughest climb in Ireland on this site

Great Site that , Cheers

g0g

I thought to be Cat 1 it needed to be a certain amount of height gain between start and finish plus maybe a certain length, and steepness was less relevant as long as a roughly constant uphill. From memory the only one on Strava I saw as Cat 1 in Wicklow was starting in Kilmac and heading for the Liffey Bridge on the way to Sally Gap. The only little bit of downhill is the right fork at Rocky Valley. Yeah I know it's never very steep uphill but you probably climb about 400m over the full course.

As for tough ones, the Kilmashogue one really is tough and the Bohernabreena one that's called Col du Tourmalet on Strava is the toughest from that valley. Red Hill is tough too.

Lumen

g0g wrote: »

I thought to be Cat 1 it needed to be a certain amount of height gain between start and finish plus maybe a certain length, and steepness was less relevant as long as a roughly constant uphill.

For pro racing they also take into account the position of the climb within the race/stage, so technically you can't apply them to a climb taken in isolation.

Chips Lovell

As Lumen said, races use a relatively arbitrary way of grading climbs. Different race organisers are likely to grade climbs differently too. For websites, like Strava etc., they all have their own way of calculating it, it seems.

IronmanJNR

mcgratheoin wrote: »

Nope - based on Grand Tour criteria there are very very few Category 1 and no HC category climbs in Ireland (afaik).

If you go to strava you can search the map excluding whichever categories you want, and you'll find that anything listed as HC is not actually a bike climb, it's somebody posting up a hike or mountain climb on the site.

zanibike has Borris to the mast at Mt. Leinster as the hardest climb in the country and that's a Cat 1.

Mt lenister CAT 1 ( Like you said ) http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/15639798

Now on my to do list

ROK ON

Idleater wrote: »

Man how overjoyed I was seeing the 9.5% sur 1km after the 12% km on the Marie Blanque only to be shown 13.5% followed by 13% kms. I think my strava segment shows my pace at 6kmph :O

There are no cat.1 climbs in Ireland. None whatsoever.
That is not to say that there are not tough climbs, there are. But there are many very short & verysteep climbs plus a few medium length shallow climbs.

DirkVoodoo

Strava calculate it by the length*gradient exceeding a fixed amount. I think it's 8 thousand for a cat 4, so a climb would have to be, for example 2km at 4% to rank as a cat 4.

I think that's how they do it, there are details somewhere on their site.

IronmanJNR

ROK ON wrote: »

There are no cat.1 climbs in Ireland. None whatsoever.
That is not to say that there are not tough climbs, there are. But there are many very short & verysteep climbs plus a few medium length shallow climbs.

You sure , http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/15639798

Welcome Mount Leinster CAT 1 Baby !!!!!

Lumen

IronmanJNR wrote: »

You sure , http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/15639798

Welcome Mount Leinster CAT 1 Baby !!!!!

It's barely a bump in the road!

In fairness you can't really compare Irish climbs to stuff elsewhere. I'd much rather do a couple of hours at 8% on some velvety stretch of sun-soaked European tarmac than drag myself around the chip-and-pothole strewn roads of Wicklow all day in the pissing perma-winter that we've had recently.

IronmanJNR

Wouldnt we all Lumen ..

I'll like nothing better than a long Hilly ride every week .. We dont have the european Tarmac or the Sun,.. but what we do have is a beautiful country F@ck the rain ..

Go out and try it ... you never know , you might even enjoy it

Inventor

IronmanJNR wrote: »

You sure , http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/15639798

Welcome Mount Leinster CAT 1 Baby !!!!!

Theres something not quite right with that route. It looks like you would need a MTB to get to the summit and a handglider to get down as it doesn't seem to follow any roads.

mcgratheoin

Lumen wrote: »

It's barely a bump in the road!

Zanibike has it the same difficulty as Col de Porte so it'd be a Cat 2 on the tour. Col de Porte is longer, but doesn't have the same steep ramps as Mt Leinster (especially the final bit on the road to the mast)

CillianL

When I said Bohernabreena Hill climb I mean't from the Church to the fork in the road at the top where straight on brings you to Piperstown and right brings you to Glenasmole which only takes a few minutes. Its that section which is particularly tough.

ROK ON

mcgratheoin wrote: »

Zanibike has it the same difficulty as Col de Porte so it'd be a Cat 2 on the tour. Col de Porte is longer, but doesn't have the same steep ramps as Mt Leinster (especially the final bit on the road to the mast)

They are wrong. Col du Porte is as easy as they come. Long and shallow.
Mt Leinster is not.
I would categorise Mt Leinster as way tougher.

on_the_nickel

Lumen wrote: »

Kilmashogue Lane
http://app.strava.com/segments/631099

As someone who rarely gets to ride around Dublin/Wicklow, can I ask why it's been climbed by relatively few people compared to others around there?

Is it just that hard you need to be masochistic to try it, or is surface bad?

mcgratheoin

on_the_nickel wrote: »

As someone who rarely gets to ride around Dublin/Wicklow, can I ask why it's been climbed by relatively few people compared to others around there?

Is it just that hard you need to be masochistic to try it, or is surface bad?

There's nowhere to go at the top except back down again - it's a cul de sac so nobody rides it as part of a spin down towards the mountains.

mirv

Kilmashogue is harder than it is rough.

Mount Leinster to the mast is rough on the descent - both gravelly and potholed, I dragged the brake at 25-30km/h for bursts and stopped a couple of times to let the rims cool down.

Kippure and to the power station on Turlough Hill are both less rough as well as easier, so you can let rip on the descent a little bit more. Those two and the Sally Gap by Kilbride/Lugala/Stocking Lane feel like long drags in comparison to Mt Leinster. I did Slieve Maan, Shay Elliot from the west side, and then the Wicklow Gap in a stiff headwind on Sat and they felt tougher than any of the Sally Gaps do normally. Although that could be the headwind more than anything else as I'm a featherweight and get blown around quite badly!

Lumen

on_the_nickel wrote: »

As someone who rarely gets to ride around Dublin/Wicklow, can I ask why it's been climbed by relatively few people compared to others around there?

Is it just that hard you need to be masochistic to try it, or is surface bad?

It's a dead end. Running into a brick wall would be quicker and less painful.

Lusk Doyle

Lumen wrote: »

It's a dead end. Running into a brick wall would be quicker and less painful.

Cue "that" photo of raam from the hill climb TT nationals last year...

Super Freak

Raam

I prefer this one from Mamore Gap.

Lusk Doyle

Super Freak wrote: »

That's the one!

Wishbone Ash

Raam wrote: »

I prefer this one from Mamore Gap

It's incredible that the Gap of Mamore is classed by STRAVA as a Cat 4. It's a savage climb but I suppose it's quite short. Even my car won't take it in 2nd gear!