Michael, from Australia, left the following comment to Tour de Central Ohio
Delmer, your fitness campaign is truly remarkable. The breakfast looks great to me. I like the descriptions of your various meal breaks, which seem to be genuine highlights of the journey.
I don’t want to disparage your achievement, but does Ohio have any hills at all? What about wind? Apart from your maps blowing away, was there a gale or tornado of any sort?
For metric readers, you cycled 160km, which is twice more than I’ve ever ridden in a day.
To answer succinctly:
The part of Ohio I live in lacks anything in the way of serious hills. It seems to me that there is always a breeze, at least when I’m in the country, blowing from west to east; Motionbased typically suggests that the wind is blowing about 10 mph when I’m out. I’ve only been out once this season in which the wind was bad enough that I wished I’d stayed home.
To drone on as if you have nothing better to do than read my droning:
The woman I used to be married to is from the Southeastern part of Ohio — an area known as Swiss Hills — which is very hilly and would be quite a challenge to ride for two reasons:
Central and Western Ohio are mostly flat. This is due to one of the following:
On a typical 30-mile ride — the one that falls short of crossing Rt. 38, across which is the first hill of any notice, I climb 470 feet, go uphill 11.06 miles and downhill 12.19 miles … which is sort of surprising as this is an out-and-back course; I may have started the GPS at the Bike Trail and turned it off at home … this doesn’t explain all the difference, but some. I’m not sure how my GPS calculates elevation but any climbing or descending on this course is so gradual it’s hard to notice much one way or the other.
(It may be fun to note that while ripping across Norris Lake in a Jet Boat I had an uphill time of over nine minutes and a downhill time of over eight minutes with a climbing elevation of 175 feet. So something as simple as bouncing across the waves makes enough up-and-down motion that the GPS tracks and totals it. I suppose the ultimate test of GPS elevation accuracy would be to strap one to Ron Jeremy’s butt? Does he ever do it in the missionary position? In a bed? What happens to all the pizza that goes uneaten?)
As I look through my Topofusion logs I’ve noticed that, though I would describe the several about-50-mile rides as the same on a scale of climbing difficulty (zero), they show climbing elevations between 1008 feet and 2140 feet; gradual, mostly unnoticeable, climbs and dips add up over 50 miles.
As you enter Mechanicsburg, there’s a pretty good hill — for Central Ohio, anyway.
There’s another just west of Mechanicsburg between the ‘burg and Mutual, Ohio. This, the longest hill on the 100-mile ride,came, just over 1/2 -way in. At 55.8 miles elevation is 1100 feet and there is a 6% grade to 1286 feet as you ride to 57.8 miles. So, not quite 186 feet in 2 miles. This is per the Garmin Training Center software. I really have no idea how to calculate grade … the same software returned a 32% grade as I walked up the steps to the Rockin’ Robin Diner.
I’ve uploaded several tracks to Motionbased. I would have rated the breeziness of each ride the same — a breeze in my face on the way west and the same breeze at my back on the way home. Motionbased suggests that the 50 and 75 mile rides had winds of 10 mph and greater while the 100-mile ride had winds of 1 mph gusting to 3.5 mph; this feels wrong.
Motionbased also points out that the GPS signal I had on the rides was poor.
Thanks Delmer. A great thing about reading is travel without actually travelling. I hope to visit your interesting part of the world some day.
Whatever the “physiography” your achievement is excellent.
Delmer,
To answer your question about Garmin devices calculating elevation – Forerunner and Edge 205 units determine elevation by GPS triangulation with 4 or more satellites. The Edge 305 and other hand-held units have barometric pressure altimeters, which auto calibrates with the GPS info, and produces more accurate elevation info.
If you haven’t already, try applying MB Gravity to your activities. It’s our elevation correct that works especailly well in your part of the world.
http://wiki.motionbased.com/mb/Gravity
Mike
Thanks Michael.
And Mike, thanks for the elevation calculation explanation. I should have probably mentioned that while I think the wind speed reported by Motionbased was not what I thought it was that, I’m certain, Motionbased gets that info from another source. I doubt they have a bunch of meteorologists on staff. The site is pretty cool, useful, and fulfills that all-important nerdiness even casual cyclers (and other outdoor adventurers) have.