How much climbing?

[seenvic]

OK, now we have a pretty good handle on the distances.

Does anyone have an altimeter? Can you tell us how much climbing each loop has?

Ideally, to us like this:

Great Wall
Skinny Loop (all 6 miles of it)
Brown Wave.
Connector from first Great Wall intersection back to the trailhead.

Thanks

[Rich Borst]

seenvic said:

OK, now we have a pretty good handle on the distances.

Does anyone have an altimeter? Can you tell us how much climbing each loop has?

Ideally, to us like this:

Great Wall
Skinny Loop (all 6 miles of it)
Brown Wave.
Connector from first Great Wall intersection back to the trailhead.

Thanks

I have several wireless Vernier systems in my Physics lab that have an altimeters and 3-axis accelerometers. The only problem is that the altimeter provides a relative rating. I'll take some data and post it later. It will take some time.

[Rich Borst]

I have elevations for all of the Skinny and the Brown wave. I need to know where to post them. Next week I'll get the other two trails.

[seenvic]

Rich said:

I have elevations for all of the Skinny and the Brown wave. I need to know where to post them. Next week I'll get the other two trails.

Rich,
If you can make the profiles into .jpg files, you can then put them on www.photobucket.com. Then you can come on here and put a link to the .jpg files in a post on this forum. The profiles will appear in the post.

[rosto67]

Here are some images of the elevations on the FATS trail system.

Brown Wave: i105.photobucket.com/albums/m229/rosto67/BrauneWelle.jpg

Skinny Long Part: i105.photobucket.com/albums/m229/rosto67/Lang.jpg

Skinny Short Part: i105.photobucket.com/albums/m229/rosto67/kurz.jpg
And an extra:

ORA: i105.photobucket.com/albums/m229/rosto67/ora.jpg

I welcome comments. Weather permitting I'll get the Deep Step and the Great Wall this weekend.

The data was collected using a Vernier WDSS which was set to take 200 data points per minute.

Note that on the long part of the Skinny I stopped to talk with a friend just beyond the 1.0 mile mark. I originally recorded elevations in meters and had to convert to feet.

The elevations are relative elevations which are below or above the zero point, the Parking lot. These are not absolute elevations above sea level.

Rich Borst
Aiken SC

[terryg]

Cool....Very nice! Confirms my seat of the pants experience. That climb out of skinny (long section,on the graph right to left around the 1.8 mark) going cw was a killer for me in the middle of summer when I was out of shape. Still have not tried it again going cw but its fun going ccw. Looking forward to Great Wall and Deep Step graphs.

Wonder what's going to happen to the ORA trail now that the site is for sale. Hope whoever buys it will keep it intact. Its a fun trail.

[rosto67]

Here's another addition to the elevations. I rode the Deep Step Yesterday. I think CCW. Anyway I rode parallel to the road first then hit the bridge and climbed up past the cash register.

I rode the great wall today. There is some garbage data at the beginning and end of all rides when I take the WDSS out of my Jersey pocket.

Great Wall: i105.photobucket.com/albums/m229/rosto67/grossemauer.jpg

Deep Step: i105.photobucket.com/albums/m229/rosto67/tiefestufe.jpg

It's really interesting to note that we don't climb all that much around here. I just got back from Syracuse where I did similar readings on Green Lake trail and found that the climb was around 360 feet. Even in Oklahoma where my son lives I have been on trails that have a 400+ elevation change.

Rich Borst

[seenvic]

rosto67 said:

It's really interesting to note that we don't climb all that much around here. I just got back from Syracuse where I did similar readings on Green Lake trail and found that the climb was around 360 feet. Even in Oklahoma where my son lives I have been on trails that have a 400+ elevation change.

Rich Borst

I'd agree that this area is topographically challenged. And that generally we don't have much climbing when compared to places with mountains.

But there are some local rides and routes that offer some decent climbing for living at 200-600' above sea level w/ no mountains of any kind.

It is more traditional to measure a trails total elevation gain by using an altimeter that keeps track of the total accumulated feet climbed. I may be wrong, but you seem to be taking the difference between the highest and lowest points on a loop. Does the device you use keep track of the accumulated feet gained?

For comparison's sake here are some rides I did w/ alimeters that give you an idea of how it stacks up around here...

In the mtns....A ride in Pisgah that includes going up Clawhammer Rd, Maxwell Cove to Black Mtn. that is 26 miles and climbed 3300 feet. That's 79' per mile.

Off Road Mount Mitchell. 55 Miles. 9500 feet. 173' per mile and it's brutal climbing.

SM 100. 100 miles. 12,250 feet. 122.5' per mile. Longer than it is brutal climbing.

Then locally...A route in the Forks Area that uses mostly gravel roads with some local knowledge singletrack that climbs 2,000 feet in 25 miles. 80' per mile. Same as the ride in Pisgah desribed above.

Way back in the day of the old Tower Trails, we had a loop called the "Cananner Trainer" that was 13 miles and climbed 1,900 feet. Most of the steep singletrack climbs in that loop are gone now, though. 146' per mile. More then the SM 100.

And I would guess that the FATS loops climb:

Deep Step 500' per lap. 6 miles.
Great Wall. 550' per lap. 7.5 miles
Brown Wave. 400' per lap. 5.5 miles
Skinny. 400' per lap. 6 miles.

[Angela]

I think if folks aren't finding enough challenge locally on the climbs a few things will "help"....... cut back a lot on your riding and put on 10 or 15 extra pounds and you'll find plenty of challenge right here in your own back yard. If that doesn't appeal to you I'll bet a trip on one of the loops (or actually on almost any of our trails) with an old, rusty, low level bike would really be a challenge

[azdrawdy]

Good one Angela. We went out yesterday and rode DS cw, then the bottom half of the Skinny, then the BW ccw, then the top half of the Skinny. 'Bout wore me out!

The SO (on her LIGHT, not so rusty Yeti!) said, "Hey, let's ride the GW!". I didn't even answer, I just kept pedaling toward the parking lot

WHEW! Good riding! Wish we hadn't waited until noon to start as it was getting kinda warm, but we sure had fun. Looking forward to DuPont this Wednesday ;D

Michael

[rosto67]

The altimeter I used takes the altitude difference. By strict definition when you leave the parking lot and return your net difference in altitude is zero. When I leave the parking lot I set zero the altimeter. Then it takes 400 points per minute of the altitude relative to the zero point (here the parking lot). This does not essentially track the total distance climbed but the altitude difference. To find the distance climbed you need to take the difference between two points.

The difficulty of climb or the easiness of the descent is related to the the altitude difference divided by the horizontal distance. To obtain this you would have to find the slope of the graph. I have done this a few times and get varying results. Essentiall calculating the tangent of the angle (the altitude difference divided by the horizontal distance) will give you the coefficient of friction. The higher the coefficient of friction the harder the climb.

Rich Borst

[seenvic]

rosto67 said:

The altimeter I used takes the altitude difference. By strict definition when you leave the parking lot and return your net difference in altitude is zero. When I leave the parking lot I set zero the altimeter. Then it takes 400 points per minute of the altitude relative to the zero point (here the parking lot). This does not essentially track the total distance climbed but the altitude difference. To find the distance climbed you need to take the difference between two points.

The difficulty of climb or the easiness of the descent is related to the the altitude difference divided by the horizontal distance. To obtain this you would have to find the slope of the graph. I have done this a few times and get varying results. Essentiall calculating the tangent of the angle (the altitude difference divided by the horizontal distance) will give you the coefficient of friction. The higher the coefficient of friction the harder the climb.

Rich Borst

I find it easiest to do the above with an altimeter that has the function called "accumulated elevation gain" or "accumulated elevation loss". I have owned two units that do this. One is broken beyond repair and the other needs a battery. It's a fairly common feature on wristwatch model altimeters. I just don't have an altimer that is functioning right now.

[rosto67]

What you need to do is figure out how the altimeter reads the altitude. Mine does it through differences in atmospheric pressure. The associated software allows the user to calculate elevation gain and even angle for a given section of trail. My altimeter will also calculate force and acceleration on x y and z axes. The acceleration on the y-axis is closely related to the difficulty of the climb. There are a number of variables that also affect difficulty. One of them is the frictional force which in turn is related to (1) the type of tires; (2) the tire pressure; (3) the type of tread as well as (4) the type of soil. Soils with a great deal of clay have polar molecules which increase friction due to static interactions. Sand is silicon dioxide which is a virtually non-polar crystal with little friction.

Sorry about the Science terms...you have a Ph.D. and Physics teacher here.

[seenvic]

seenvic said:

[

And I would guess that the FATS loops climb:

Deep Step 500' per lap. 6 miles.
Great Wall. 550' per lap. 7.5 miles
Brown Wave. 400' per lap. 5.5 miles
Skinny. 400' per lap. 6 miles.

I rode with an altimeter for the first time in a long time yesterday.

I rode Deep Step, Skinny and Brown Wave.

The total climbing was 1,160 feet.

I think it breaks down about like this:

Deep Step: 500 feet. This includes the lollypop stick both directions.

Skinny: the loop itself is 320' with another 60' gained from the Skinny/Great Wall junction to the parking lot.

Brown Wave: 280 feet.

Most surprising stat: If riding the Deep Step loop CCW, you leave the parking lot and ride to the loop. You've gain 20 feet when you turn right onto the loop. When you cross the paved road for the 2nd time at the bottom of the loop, the altimeter read 220'. That means from road to road traveling CCW gains 200'. And I thought that side was mostly DH. When I saw that, I expected the other side to measure 360-400' of elevation gain. When I finished the loop, I was at 480'. After crossing the road, I only gained another 260 feet. I was surprised to find of the 500 feet climbed CCW, 200 feet were on the "DH" side and 260 feet on the "uphill" side, with another 40 feet being the lollypop stick 20 feet each way.

[seenvic]

A complete lap of FATS CCW will get you about 1700 feet gained in 26 miles.

Deep Step & Lollipop Stick 500
Great Wall & Connector to Parking Lot. 580
Skinny Loop. 320
Brown Wave and short lollipop stick 300.

The other two loops will be similiar to Deep Step in climbing, but with more climbing.

[rosto67]

Sounds pretty much like the data I collected last fall. Your altimeter was collecting total altitude gained/lost. I was getting a profile of the trail. I took my altimeter to the SANTOS trails near Ocala last week and surprisingly found that there was a 150' gain in altitude in Florida yet.

[seenvic]

rosto67 said:

Sounds pretty much like the data I collected last fall. Your altimeter was collecting total altitude gained/lost. I was getting a profile of the trail. I took my altimeter to the SANTOS trails near Ocala last week and surprisingly found that there was a 150' gain in altitude in Florida yet.

So how many feet did you climb at Santos and in how many miles?

[proximity]

Does anyone have an idea of what the totoal climbing is for the deep step trail...must be about 6k or so huh? Just kidding! Love that trail but it kicks me in the tail everytime I ride it!

[seenvic]

OK some perspective. I went up to ORAMM this weekend. 63 miles, 11,000 feet of climbing. The winner did it in 4:54. That's 13 MPH. The 10th place overall finisher was in at 5:40 and he rode a fully rigid SS 29er. I am not sure which individual is more sick.

I barely ride FATS at that pace for 10 miles.

The thing is w/ ORAMM the DH's are so technical that there is no rest for the weary on them. Very little recovery.

Local rider Shawn Brigdon went. No word yet on results. But I did read that Shawn fixed another rider's chain during the event.