Comments on: Labor Day Omnium Day 3 – Circuit Race

By: kartoone

kartoone — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 01:11:07 +0000

Thanks Marvyn – I’m really looking forward to the Pensacola race – would be great to see you there!

By: kartoone

kartoone — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 01:10:11 +0000

Hi Tom, the 0.42 mile figure is actually a sum of four different portions of the climb that have gradients of at least 17%. I call that the “Scanuppia Factor” for a climb based on a famous climb in Europe that averages 17% for nearly 5 miles!!! So I decided to rate the climbs in Birmingham based on the total length of all segments of the climb with a gradient greater than or equal to 17%.

The segment that you described after the gate and around the turn is definitely the steepest pitch of the whole climb with my iBike maxing out at 24%, but there are two additional sections with gradients greater than 20% and three with gradients greater than 17%:

0.42mi (0.14mi@17.1%, 0.09mi@18.3%, 0.05mi@17.1%, 0.14mi@17%)

The “descent” from the towers also has a 20+% gradient, which means that you climb a 20% gradient on the “downhill” – gotta love that!!!

I took screenshots at about where the steepest points are on the Strava elevation profile. Strava uses my Garmin 800 elevation data to calculate gradient. The Garmin 800 has a 7 vertical foot threshold before recording a change in elevation so if you zoom in far enough you get this stair-stepping gradient with 0% portions and super steep portions. That is why the Strava screenshot shows 28.9% in the portion that should be closer to 24%. Either way, it’s crazy steep.

http://toonecycling.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/doubleoak1.png
http://toonecycling.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/doubleoak2.png
http://toonecycling.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/doubleoak3.png

By: Marvyn

Marvyn — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 02:16:22 +0000

very cool brian! been following you for a bit..i was 4th at the huntsville omnium a couple of months ago that you won and was amazed when i saw you at the top of strava on the kom contest for july. planning to do the pensacola stage race in a couple weeks as well. i’ll try & say ‘hi’.

By: Tom Nash

Tom Nash — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 02:28:29 +0000

Brian,

First off, congratulations on your fourth-place finish. That sounds like some pretty serious competition. On another note, I successfully took on the Double Oak Way monster on Saturday morning at the end of riding the Routes 41 & 43 loop. Turns out that a cycling friend of mine was familiar with it. Regarding the .42 miles at 23.9% you noted re: Double Oak Way, is that from the beginning of the climb–the ascent beginning not too far off of Route 41–to the gate, which prevents unauthorized cars from proceeding further? According to my odometer, it was around .5 miles from the beginning of the ascent to the gate, and then about another .21 miles after the gate to the top of the crest of a very steep ascent. Still goes up a little after that, but it’s relatively mild, as you know.

I’m wondering what the gradient of that last .21 miles is after the gate, because it really gets steep that last .1 mile, which includes a turn in the road. Thought you might have possibly included that portion in your .42 measure. If not, I gotta believe that’s the steepest part. In any event, by my odometer’s calculation of .75 miles, that’s definitely the steepest climb for that distance I’ve ever encountered, so it was nice to have a break at the gate.

Thanks for any input you can provide, Brian. God bless you and your family.

Tom