Headwind/Incline Equivalence

[David881]

Another thing, riding into a head wind makes you cold, riding uphill makes you warm.

[Brucey]

.... Up hill mostly 10 miles, turned around looking forward to an easy ride downhill home and flogged myself silly pedalling downhill into a 20mph headwinds.
The hil was perhaps 6% and I found it easier going up than fighting the wind downhill!

I doubt you climbed +1600m...? And I would be amazed if you weren't going faster on the return leg despite 'the struggle'...

I think that cycling is only 'easy' or 'difficult' in relation to your expectations... there are very few absolutes.

cheers

[karlt]

.... Up hill mostly 10 miles, turned around looking forward to an easy ride downhill home and flogged myself silly pedalling downhill into a 20mph headwinds.
The hil was perhaps 6% and I found it easier going up than fighting the wind downhill!

I doubt you climbed +1600m...? And I would be amazed if you weren't going faster on the return leg despite 'the struggle'...

I think that cycling is only 'easy' or 'difficult' in relation to your expectations... there are very few absolutes.

cheers

True dat. I purposely didn't flog myself going home last night and the 1.8 mile 450' hill I start with was a lot less painful at 9.5mph than it is at 11

Only took me about a minute or so longer than normal. The really satisfying thing was doing the whole commute in 55min and 15.2mph average which is a long way from my best but is a speed I remember working towards three or four years ago when I started this lark.

I've also noticed this cycling with children. 5%, 10%+ even - suddenly quite easy done at their pace.

[iviehoff]

I once went up a moderately steep hill, probably around 7-8% (the sign said 10%, but that's a very round number) without pedalling. It was exceedingly windy. There was a hairpin bend before the hill, and on the flat, into the wind, both I and a friend had been blown off, and had to walk half a mile to the bottom of the hill.

I tried to use the calculator above to try and work out what kind of a tail wind would blow you up a hill. But it goes badly wrong if you try to mix a material tailwind and a hill in the same calculation.