On Friday, May 22, 2020 at 12:55:41 PM UTC-7, Axel Reichert wrote:
Frank Krygowski writes:

the Appalachians. Like most bike tourists, I found they were much
tougher than the Rockies, even though not nearly as high. Passes we
rode in the Rockies tended to be very long, but mostly moderate
grades. The Appalachian climbs are often much, much steeper, and when
you've conquered one, you're immediately looking at another.

Well, steepness correlates negatively with the length of a climb. I
played around with pass statistics a lot using the data from

http://www.salite.ch/struttura/default.asp?ultime=10

a huge database of 12000 (mostly European) climbs. Unfortunately the
English and German versions are broken for quite some time, so a working
knowledge of Italian helps.

An interesting question is: Which is the steepest climb for a given
length or (equivalent) the longest for a given average gradient? There
are not many of these "Pareto-dominant" (the mathematical concept behind
the question) climbs, some nice examples (this is not anecdotal evident,
but measured numbers).

- The village of Buitonne in Switzerland can be reached from the Rhone
valley. It is 2.92 km with an average gradient of 20.1 %. You read
that right. Riding this was quite an experience.

- In Italy there is Pozza/San Glisente, a dead-end road of 8.2 km with
17.7 %.

- In Austria there a five climbs from the Ziller valley to a panorama
ridge road. All sport 10 km 10 %. Try all for a nice day trip.

- In the US, there is Mount Washington with 12.4 km at 11.5 %. It is the
ONLY listed mainland US climb with a difficulty index (sum of L * p^2
over all sections, L being the length of the section, p the gradient
in percent) higher than 1200 (still bread and butter in the Alps, see
below).

- In Sicily, there is the volcano Etna with 40 km at 7.3 %.

- In Spain, El Teide, with 63.7 km at 3.6 % (sounds like Rockies ...)

- In the Andes, Conococha with 117.2 km at 3.5 %.

There are NO famous climbs ridden in Le Tour, Giro or Vuelta present in
this Pareto list.

The toughest fully paved one in France is the ski station Val Thorens
with 1396. All five climbs in the Ziller valley (above) are above
1400. The Monte Grappa in Italy alone offers 9 climbs from about 1200 up
to 1700. Italy has 28 climbs tougher than 1500, up to 2700 (this is
Pozza from above).

For comparison, the highest pass in the Alps, the Col de l'Iseran (48 km
at 4.1 %, steepest kilometer at 7 %) has a difficulty of a meagre
1094. The oh so famous L'Alpe d'Huez has only 1/3 of the length of the
Etna (see above), but roughly the same gradient. 913 difficulty is the
result, which is a Joe Average for the Alps. There are literally
hundreds of climbs more difficult.

On average, the French climbs are the easiest in the Alps (corollary: Le
Tour must have the best marketing), then comes Switzerland. Austria
builds tough roads, and the Italian roads are sometimes crazy. In all of
the Alps there are only 5 paved passes 10 km AND 10 %. Most of the
really difficult stuff are dead-ends.

Now I am very interested to learn which US climbs might have a L * p^2
difficulty higher than 1000. 5 km at 20 %, 10 km at 10 %, or 40 km at 5
% will do. And all climbs more difficult than, say, 1500 (a very rare
breed) will imprint a lasting memory into your brain.

Looking forward to your input!

Best regards

Axel

P. S.: Mouna Kea, Onion Valley Road, Mount Baldy and Mount Evans get
over 1000.


Powder Mountain is a hard climb in Salt Lake. https://pjammcycling.com/climb/93.Powder%20Mountain It has some ridiculous pitches. It goes to a ski resort, and I wouldn't want to drive it in the winter for fear of flying off a cliff descending.

I'm too old for the uber-hard climbs. You get to the 20% grades, and its just not fun. You run out of gears and just grind along until you say "f*** this." At least in the Alps you get some great scenery. Onion Valley and some of the So Cal climbs are just grueling, brown, hot and not particularly scenic. The grades are not that steep in the Oregon Cascades, but at least you get some nice scenery, and the elevation is not terrible O2-wise. When I go ride with my son in Salt Lake, I'm panting like some asthmatic pug. My son slows down and keeps saying "are you alright?" Yes, damn it! Must . .. . keep . . . riding.

-- Jay Beattie.