Why I Hate Coming Home After Riding
Written by Michael on March 12th, 2008
Sure, the view from my deck every night is awesome but it sure sucks to have to climb back up every night. At the end there, you see the murderous profile of Thames Rd, one of the three options I have to get home from the Broadmoor Valley. While not the longest, Thames is the steepest but I’d grown very tired of climbing Farthing Drive. Thames is about 1.08 miles long and averages 11% with two pitches that exceed 15%. According to my PowerTap, I was averaging about 355 watts but was still only going about 6 mph up the thing.
Those other three humps beginning at mile 5 were the repeats of the road that leads up to the Broadmoor Golf Course. It’s one of the most bizarre hills I’ve ever ridden. Though it’s about a mile long at 8%, it looks as if it’s barely a rise due to the big mountain ahead (Cheyenne Mountain) and three other ridges that can be seen from that road. On the first club ride I did out here, I completely misjudged it and lost over 100 yards before the summit of the climb. When I got up, everybody was laughing at me and said that hill gets newbies to Springs all the time. I wasn’t laughing…
13
AM
hey what happened to Kiersten’s site?
http://www.kierstenwilley.com it says it is no longer available
13
AM
Not sure kell, looks ok to me. Might have been a problem with your ISP.
13
AM
its ok now. It told me it was available to buy, so I got worried. Thanks.
Oh ya, I wanted to tell you that I will probably be in Ohio the 2nd week in July til the 1st of August. I would love for you to meet the boys and re-meet Kiersten (last time you saw her she was 7 months). See if it would work into yours and Amy’s plans.
13
AM
500 ft in a mile and half. Isn’t that 500/8000=6%? Is the altimeter wrong?
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AM
Yeah, the altitude numbers seem off but only by about 200 feet. That hill is definitely not 6%, on a 6% gain, I could stay in the big ring and this thing is a 39×27 for sure. I’ll dig up the USGS data I had found for the street I live on which basically climbs the same hill but over a longer distance. Also, the graph above is misleading because of the rise/run exaggeration that the MotionBased site gives you. Unfortunately, there is no way to change that.
13
PM
Greg, on the way back from home tonight, I checked this hill out with my more accurate GPS (Garmin 60Csx) and here’s what I got.
I only counted the main hill.
starting altitude: 5,904
ending altitude: 6,512
Δ: +608 feet
climb distance: 1.26 miles (6,653 feet)
608/6653= 9.1%
(± 25 feet GPS accuracy)
That still seems kinda low to me especially since the USGS says Farthing has an average gradient of 10% and this road is definitely steeper. It’s hard to say though since the GPS on my bike isn’t as accurate and their output graphs are only useful for their approximate graphical representations. Also, I think the unit takes it’s elevation samples too far apart to be super meaningful. I can change the sample rate from 10 seconds down to 1 but then I can’t upload it to MotionBased. The hill is not anything like the relatively linear graph. It has two short, steep pitches that aren’t represented here.
I might drive it tonight with the dash cam so others can take a look and make a guess.