When riding, my second weakest point is climbing. In fact, I don’t even have to climb, just *seeing* the darn uphill will make my heart rate go sky-rocket! aargh
Obviously, with this flaw in my biking character, I’ve learnt to inform myself of the amount of positive height metres (i.e. climbing) for any organized ride I’ve planned to participate in. But still, I lacked a good way to compare rides and different areas to each other.
So I invented the Hill Factor®.
A very crude, basic formula. Take the amount of height metres and divide by the amount of kilometres.
And, if you want more of a challenge (like an Ieper guy I know) why not add some factors to estimate weather and ground conditions (so called friction factors), your personal average speed, fitness/effort level, heart rate data, the ratio of singletrack, tarmac, gravel etc etc …
Me, I prefer to keep it simple! The basic formula serves me so far well enough; it calculates the “minimum” I need to mentally prepare myself for a ride.