the vertical hour

magicbastarder

so i had a first go at this, this evening. this is the challenge where you've an hour to climb a hill, as long at you finish at the same elevation you start.

i was aiming for 600m+, but fell a little short; not helped by the wind (25km/h from WNW, on a climb that climbs NNW) and the fact that i'm carrying probably 5KG more than i'd like.

still, good fun. not knowing how i'd last over the hour, i reckon i held back a little too much - my last full climb was the second fastest of the seven, the first climb being the fastest.
my garmin said 609m at the end, but strava is saying 572m, and i'd be much more inclined to believe the strava estimate.

https://www.strava.com/activities/3767174610

rather amusingly, i cut it almost too fine on turning around two thirds of the way up on the last attempt - i stopped the clock about two seconds after reaching the bottom, and it stopped exactly on the hour.

Eamonnator

Well done. Your average speed was very good, what was your maximum speed on the descent?
If you had gone over the hour, how would that work out?

Btw, you did a Torc.

magicbastarder

looks like 66km/h according to strava, but didn't feel that fast.
one reason i picked that hill was that it was easily enough available this evening (12km from where i set out), and it's reasonably straight and quiet. i reckon for going for max elevation, it's not a good choice, you'd need something steeper.

TheBlaaMan

magicbastarder wrote: »

i was aiming for 600m+, but fell a little short; not helped by the wind (25km/h from WNW, on a climb that climbs NNW) and the fact that i'm carrying probably 5KG more than i'd like.
.
.
....my garmin said 609m at the end, but strava is saying 572m,

It might be worth checking the elavation.......
If the word 'Elevation' below 572m is shown as a hyperlink on the Strava page, it may be possible to have the climbing checked. Click the link, wait for the page to refresh then click F5 to refresh the page again. You might get back the missing 37m - be warned that it might recalculate and take a bit off you too!

magicbastarder

one thing you can see in the strava map are the elevation lines; i started just below 70m and finished a little above 140m, so i suspect the elevation of the climb of 76m is probably reasonably accurate - so 532m for the first 7 reps and 40m for the last partial rep makes sense.

i don't know if strava actually fact check the elevation off that data?

magicbastarder

Eamonnator wrote: »

If you had gone over the hour, how would that work out?

was mulling that one last night while doing it. i guess the most sensible/predictable thing would be to eliminate whatever gain was made on the final repeat?

McGrath5

Did this earlier on around Stocking Avenue, ended up with an elevation gain of 536m.

Eamonnator

magicbastarder wrote: »

was mulling that one last night while doing it. i guess the most sensible/predictable thing would be to eliminate whatever gain was made on the final repeat?

That makes sense.

Tony04

magicbastarder wrote: »

was mulling that one last night while doing it. i guess the most sensible/predictable thing would be to eliminate whatever gain was made on the final repeat?

I guess just take off the gain from the last repeat divide by whatever time and multiply by 60. Or if finish just over 60 devide by your whole time and multiply it by 6p
Taking off the final repeat isnt fair as not all hills are created equal so canceling a 300 meter repeat is not like cancelling a 50 meter repeat

Weepsie

Was going to do this, but didn't think the legs were great. Went faster up howth from Sutton then ever before, so what do I know.

Going to do it next week though if I can. There's a few short .5 km - 1.5km climbs near aughrim that have between 67-91 metres gain.

The half kilometre one is in Greenan and is 70metres at 12%. I've done it once, hated it but I'd just done my first attempt at the Shea Elliot

Weepsie

Tony04 wrote: »

I guess just take off the gain from the last repeat divide by whatever time and multiply by 60. Or if finish just over 60 devide by your whole time and multiply it by 6p
Taking off the final repeat isnt fair as not all hills are created equal so canceling a 300 meter repeat is not like cancelling a 50 meter repeat

Part of the point was you finish where you start though. It's a challenge more suited to short sharp climbs you'd think.

magicbastarder

Tony04 wrote: »

I guess just take off the gain from the last repeat divide by whatever time and multiply by 60. Or if finish just over 60 devide by your whole time and multiply it by 6p
Taking off the final repeat isnt fair as not all hills are created equal so canceling a 300 meter repeat is not like cancelling a 50 meter repeat

you don't have to complete the hill on the final repeat (well, i didn't) - i knew i was climbing at about 6 minutes per climb towards the end, and descending in about two minutes, and as i turned at the bottom i had five minutes to spare; so climbed for about 3:15 which gave me 1:45 to descend. i cut it fine though.

Tony04

Weepsie wrote: »

Part of the point was you finish where you start though. It's a challenge more suited to short sharp climbs you'd think.

I thought you finished where you started to make it a fair test? I dont know I thought the idea was a kind of how hard you can go for an hour fitness test and unlike a vam test it was doable as not everyones got hour long ascents in their back garden, and unlike an hour record track attempt it was kind of more enjoyable as you dont have to hold an aero position all the time.

And yeh your going to score higher on steeper climbs as aerodynamics has less of an effect and all that so you can gain more elevation at the same effort, look at ronan mcloughlin setting the irish everesting record on a 11.3% climb for example

magicbastarder

McGrath5 wrote: »

Did this earlier on around Stocking Avenue, ended up with an elevation gain of 536m.

stocking lane? did you do the full length of it, or repeat a section of it? it seems to be quite variable in gradient.

McGrath5

Started here....

https://goo.gl/maps/AjuErudqFeAm3khr8

And went up to the roundabout at the top of the hill. The first 20 mins dragged but the rest flew by.

magicbastarder

ah, the half km from roundabout to roundabout? i don't know the road well, didn't realise it was a six percenter.

wanderer 22

Gave this a bash this evening, perfect evening for it , almost no wind - 628 metres with 46 seconds to spare :-P https://www.strava.com/activities/3786966604

magicbastarder

looks like a good climb for it - what's it like for downhill? looks a little twisty?

might be worth creating a segment for it?

wanderer 22

magicbastarder wrote: »

looks like a good climb for it - what's it like for downhill? looks a little twisty?

might be worth creating a segment for it?

Descent is grand , can be done a lot faster than I do it, was fairly quiet this evening too. Made a segment here - https://www.strava.com/segments/24954211 - there's natural turning points at either end too which are handy

magicbastarder

looks like you saved the best till last! how did you find the pacing of it?

wanderer 22

I definitely went too slow as I was expecting to blow any minute - might have to go and do it again over the week!

colm18

colm18 wrote: »

Gave this a bash this evening, perfect evening for it , almost no wind - 628 metres with 46 seconds to spare :-P https://www.strava.com/activities/3786966604

Fun fact: when I was living near by about 10 years ago or so I carried on from where you turned back with a view to head for Ticnock. About half way along the road passed the horsey place I spotted a goat up on a rock and decided to stop and get a picture and ended up rolling down into a fence and stung head to toe by nettles. To this day I'll swear to the fact the bollox was laughing at me :mad:

EDIT: Looking at the segment you made it's a solid and steady enough gradient up there around the 9 or 10% mark? God I wish I had my legs from back then as I don't recall having trouble up even on my steal frame mtb I was up it on the day in question, today that might hurt a bit

Also the KOM for that needs reporting 41.0km/h

CramCycle

magicbastarder wrote: »

was mulling that one last night while doing it. i guess the most sensible/predictable thing would be to eliminate whatever gain was made on the final repeat?

I imagine you take it from the last time you were at the starting elevation before the 60 minutes.

irishrover99

Gave this a go today. Definitely something I would have preferred a few years ago and considering I’m nearly a lock down alcho 😀 I’m happy enough with the results.
837 meters on kilmashouge, nearly 11 times to the car park. Don’t think it was the right hill as I had too many turns to do. Maybe will try the full hill next time.
My garmin has 4 meters in the difference so the I watch was bang on.

Also if I had of completed the last repetition, it would have been my 100 recorded time up to that point on Strava.

https://strava.app.link/KqBMMf4oh8

magicbastarder

fair play!

2 Wheels Good

Gave it a go this evening, 700m on the button, definitely room for improvement https://www.strava.com/activities/3796901359

magicbastarder

looks like you had a headwind too?

magicbastarder

irishrover99 wrote: »

Maybe will try the full hill next time.

kilmashogue four times in a row? ow.
(when i say four times, my best time *up* it is 14:50 for the 239m climb)

2 Wheels Good

magicbastarder wrote: »

looks like you had a headwind too?

Yeah, nothing too bad plus it helped with cooling

Eamonnator

2 Wheels Good wrote: »

Gave it a go this evening, 700m on the button, definitely room for improvement https://www.strava.com/activities/3796901359

Very good effort, pity you went over the hour.

2 Wheels Good

Eamonnator wrote: »

Very good effort, pity you went over the hour.

Garmin connect has me on 1:00:01, not sure where Strava found 4 seconds.