Quote:
Originally Posted by M_Six
Whoa! Almost 6k ft in elevation change? And here I am happy with my 10 mile road/trail ride today with 350ft of elevation change.  Oy. I have a long way to go. 
Nice stats, though. Looks like a great ride. I'll have to try out a pure road bike one of these days. |
You should be. I didn't start riding elevation until I was able to sustain a reasonably decent pace for 40 miles. Then I only started with 900-1000 ft over 30 miles and grew from there. The only reason I remember that is because one, it was about 14 months ago and I picked up cycling to for a specific ride that would cover 23,000ft of elevation over 5 days.
When climbing, the use of a HR monitor or in my case a power meter, while knowing my FTP allows me to cap my effort to a maximum power output that I know I can sustain for about 4 hours. This keeps me from blowing up mid ride. There is a finite amount of musculature and cardiovascular power available for any given block of time. Knowing that end point allows you to manage that power for the duration of your ride. Use it for speed, endurance, climbing, etc...
Capping the power output when climbing tacks on some time to the ride due to slow climbing, but being from FL I'm ok with that. Lol. Of course my gearing and some of these grades getting up to 9% and 10% forced a higher watt expenditure for those sections. That or fall over. Haha.
You'll get there. Just keep pedaling!
