It’s difficult to describe exactly how tough a ride was purely in terms of numbers. Longer rides, hillier rides and faster rides are all tougher. But factors such as your mental and physical state play a major part, and yet can’t be measured easily. And let’s not forget the weather, extremes of which can seriously affect the ‘grit’ required to endure the work. A number that many riders soon recognise as significant is the amount of climbing to be done over a certain distance. For example, a 50-mile ride with 5,000 ft of climbing will be tough for many riders. And that ratio of 1000ft of climbing every 10 miles is a convenient metric for assessing how hilly (hence tough) a ride will be.

So I created a table of all my rides (or at least those featured on this blog), sortable by Distance, Elevation and ‘Climbing’ (ratio of climbing to distance).