You may have seen that I’ve given all of the climbs a Wheelygood difficulty level and wondered what exactly it meant, so here’s my attempt at explaining it.
The first thing I’d say is that it is in no way scientific: I do have some ideas on that score involving altitude information and a trick similar to TrainingPeaks‘ concept of Normalized Power, but that’s in the future and it’s way more fun doing it this way for now! Despite this, I have tried to remove as much bias as I can for things like weather conditions and, indeed, my own fatigue levels. That said, I will admit to a slight skewing on the idea of what constitutes ‘steep’ and, for this, I blame the Fred Whitton – after both of my trips over there (which I can absolutely recommend as it’s a fantastic event), I’ve come out of it feeling that anything under 12% is flat. This is because there are so many sections way over 15% that I get desensitised to the gradient and, having now chosen to take on the gamut of Simon Warren climbs, I seem to be stuck with this characteristic. I can only offer my apologies on this score and shall keep taking the tablets.
Please take them for what they are, which is a rough, relative, guide to my feelings on the severity of each climb. There’s no need to agree – I’m a particular kind of rider and have certain preferences when it comes to climbing, but that’s certainly not to say that I’m in any way ‘right’ about anything.
So, the grading levels work something like this:
- Easy: Not terribly much of a challenge in hill terms: they’re either relatively shallow gradients, or the steep parts are very short. You probably wouldn’t stop at the top of these ones to perform much by way of self-congratulation. A good example of an easy climb would be Cheddar Gorge.
- Medium: Longer and/or steeper than the Easy climbs and, usually, with a small sting, or two. You’ll know about these ones and they demand a certain amount of pacing. You could definitely be allowed to stop and be pleased at what you’d achieved. Holm Moss is pretty representative of a medium climb.
- Hard: Brutal. Steep, long and, possibly, cobbled. These are a real challenge and demand real commitment to get to the top without stopping. You can be really chuffed with yourself at the top of these. An excellent example of a hard climb would be Shibden Wall.
- OMG: Similar to hard, but worse. The defining characteristic that I have really, really, wanted to put my foot down and stop. Get to the top of these in a oner and you can be properly proud of yourself. To date, only Hardknott Pass, Trooper Lane and the Zoncolan come into this category.
If you disagree with any of these (and you’re very welcome to!), please let me know in the comments…
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