Some people I realised may be wondering what I am on about when I mention climbs and the categories involved in the ones I am undertaking.
A detailed explanation can be found below.
The short version is the lower the climb number (they go from 5 to 1 and then a few letters that would hurt far too much to ride. A category 5 climb will make you sweat quite a bit, cat 4 will make you sweat and swear a bit, cat 3 will make you think you need to hospital and swear a lot more, cat 2 will make you think you need your head checked, require an ambulance with a defib on board following you plus the lady with the swear jar will be making a packet, cat 1 will be all of the above plus the desire to hurt anyone who says its not that bad really and it's only a little bit of pain for a short time. Women who have experienced child birth think it hurts a bit and pro cyclists love to do these for a laugh!
Then there are things like the HC categories of the world. These are French (and nobody likes them! Not even the French.) they are reserved for a special bread of nutters that get paid to ride up hills and appear on stages of the Tour De France etc. I won't be going anywhere near any of these any time soon.
The only advantage to all of these climbs of courses the big Weeeeeeee factor as you come down the other side (with a big smile and a great sense of achievement of course).
In all it's why I love to ride. That and just constantly beating Steve into work on a daily basis even though he has a super shiny new road bike. (love you really Steve).
For the definitive blurb on climb catagories see the text below.
Enjoy the riding though.
Information about Climbs
For any climb to be rated (receive a climb score/category) it must be at least500 meters in length with an average grade of 3% or more.
All climb scores are based on distance, grade/elevation change, and maximum elevation. The combination of these factors drives all final climb categories and there is no subjective analysis used in the final scoring of any climb score. All other climbs that do not meet the criteria for HC to Cat 5 are simply too small to rate and can usually be crossed easily by bicycle, running, or walking. The original concepts for the MapMyFitness categorization of all climbs came from the categorized climb ratings given by the UCI for races like the Tour de France and other professional cycling events. Our methodology is unique in several ways to allow for categorizations to be relevant for all sports and we added an additional difficulty with category 5 climbs. If you have any questions please feel free to email support@mapmyfitness.com.
Climb Definitions
HC climb - "Hors Categorie" - (a French term for above category) climbs are the hardest rating/score given to any climb. All climb scores are based on distance, grade/elevation change, and maximum elevation. The combination of these factors drives all final climb categories and there is no subjective analysis used in the final scoring of any climb score. HC climbs will traditionally be very long (over 10 miles), very steep (average grades above 8 to 10%), or very high (above 11,000 feet) but again some extremely steep or long climbs could alone qualify it as an HC rated climb.
Cat 1 Climb - These rated climbs are the next most difficult after HC climbs. The exactly same methodology is used in determining their difficulty as HC climbs but they fall next in terms of overall difficulty. All climb scores are based on distance, grade/elevation change, and maximum elevation.
Cat 2 Climb - These rated climbs are the next most difficult after Cat 1 climbs. The exactly same methodology is used in determining their difficulty as Cat 1 climbs but they fall next in terms of overall difficulty. All climb scores are based on distance, grade/elevation change, and maximum elevation.
Cat 3 Climb - These rated climbs are the next most difficult after Cat 2 climbs. The exactly same methodology is used in determining their difficulty as Cat 2 climbs but they fall next in terms of overall difficulty. All climb scores are based on distance, grade/elevation change, and maximum elevation.
Cat 4 Climb - These rated climbs are the next most difficult after Cat 3 climbs. The exactly same methodology is used in determining their difficulty as Cat 3 climbs but they fall next in terms of overall difficulty. All climb scores are based on distance, grade/elevation change, and maximum elevation.
Cat 5 Climb - These rated climbs are the least difficult of all the categorized climbs. The exactly same methodology is used in determining their difficulty as Cat 4 climbs but they the least difficult of all the rated climbs. All climb scores are based on distance, grade/elevation change, and maximum elevation.
No comments:
Post a Comment