What is a Hill

[Sharky]

Born in Lancashire and now Kent, I notice the difference. You can ride for miles on the plains of Lancashire and is fairly flat, but if you want the hills, you can easily ride into North Wales or the Peak district where they are some real challenges. There are a few hills, which I still remember - The Cat & Fiddle, Billenge Bump, Frodsham Hill - all very challenging.

Kent however has no "mountains", but you can't ride for more than half a mile without going up or down. Living on the Northdowns, there are some serious climbs. On my local training loops, some of these are demanding and make you drop to the biggest cog and then get out of the saddle. A five minute climb at 5mph is quite draining and there a few steeper ones (1:6's) that I always avoid.

 

[ColinJ]

This is my home ground nowadays - I consider it to be hilly. Google Earth reports my gpx files as approximately 75 feet per mile ascent/descent per mile.

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Definitions/demarcation of hill/mountain aside, I reckon it is more useful to say whether a ride is hilly or not by the ascent (& descent) by distance - and that doesn't give a comprehensive picture - up/down changing every 200 yards is different to a steady up and then down over a mile.

I used to live in Coundon so that was where I used to head out to to escape Coventry. It is certainly 'lumpy' out there but the hills are not too bad. I did most of them on a singlespeed bike at one time or another (39/15 gear). A few of them were quite tough though, such as the road up from Corley rocks to the B4098.

 

[Deleted member 1258]

I used to live in Coundon so that was where I used to head out to to escape Coventry. It is certainly 'lumpy' out there but the hills are not too bad. I did most of them on a singlespeed bike at one time or another (39/15 gear). A few of them were quite tough though, such as the road up from Corley rocks to the B4098.

I know that one, it gives you a workout, especially on the fixed.