BIKEPGH MESSAGE BOARD ARCHIVE

Yeah i haven't ridden in probably 3 weeks and I took the bike up 18th street over to brosville then later on up bates and my knees were burning a little. I was even in granny gear. Boy do i feel out of shape.

@stefb - 'out of shape' but aren't you riding for two now?

Yeah, now I feel like even more of a wuss

@salty: sorry. you can't be a wuss if you ride up Negley. I don't care how slowly you were going.

Negley... that's just a 12% grade, right?

nearly 16%, actually. it's a bear, to be sure. especially if you're over 200 pounds.

a bear can easily weigh over 200 lbs.

hm. according to www.heywhatsthat.com it's a shade under 15% up to Dunmoyle (the hard part), and 12-13% to the crest of the hill. ("I read it on the internets.")

Either way, it's no fun.

Try Morrowfield in south Squirrel Hill (especially after you huff'n'puff up Greenfield from 2nd).

It's huge fun. It has to be. There's nowhere I need to be that I can't get to some other way, and yet I still do it. Must be fun.

Yeah I am riding for two and I get so tired so easily. All of that blood flowing to the baby instead.

I have never ridden up negley because it is so steep. Now i want to do it just to do it.

Sounds like a killer training program. After the baby's born, you're going to be so fast we won't even know what that was that went by.

hm. according to http://www.heywhatsthat.com it's a shade under 15% up to Dunmoyle (the hard part), and 12-13% to the crest of the hill. ("I read it on the internets.")

i had something from the wpw site saved in a text file somewhere or other that i had posted on the message board a few years ago (somehow, my original account got changed to a few different names since then, so if you search for it, it'll say someone else posted it, but i assure you, it was me). so this is where i got my number from:

i've had this list saved for a bit now. i believe it was originally posted on bike pittsburgh somewhere [edited to add: it was w. pa wheelmen]; i found it again on a different message board. i have no idea who the original author is, so i'm afraid i can't give appropriate credit, but i think others might find this helpful:

Pittsburgh Hills Being located in the foothills of the Alleghenies, Pittsburgh has more hills than most metropolitan areas. That combined with road conditions that include no shoulders in many areas, cobblestone and brick roads, as well as potholes and road debris makes the area quite a challenge. These are the 10 steepest grades in the city. The percentage expresses the steepness of the hill as the rise over run expressed as a percentage. A 0% grade is perfectly flat and a 100% grade is 45 degrees from the horizontal. The angle is the arctan of this number (37% = 20 degrees) In general, Beechview has the steepest streets in the city. If you look at a topo map you'll see why. They force-fit a manhattan grid on Western PA terrain! From Pgh Post-Gazette, Oct 5, 1984:

1. Canton Beechview 37%

2. Flowers Hazelwood 28%

3. East Woodford Carrick 27.6%

4. Cutler Northside 26%

5. Rialto (Pig Hill) Troy Hill 24%

6. Tesla Hazelwood 24%

7. Newitt Carrick 23%

8. N. Winebiddle Garfield 23%

9. Hampshire Beechview 23%

10. Potomac Banksville 22%

Outside of the city:

1 Logan Millvale 25%

2. Winsdor Forest Hills 25%

3. Decatur Forest Hills 24%

4. Seavy-High Etna 22%

5. Marion Forest Hills 19%

This next list is from the Pittsburgh Press on Jan 11, 1987 and was compiled by the Surveys Division and the Snow and Ice Control Program, Dept of Public Works. It is a sampling of streets and not the definitive list of steepest streets. The list has been re-arranged to be in order of steepness. It was originally in alphabetical order.

Canton Avenue Beechview 37%

Dornbush Street Homewood 31.98%

Boustead Street Beechview 29%

East Woodford Avenue Carrick 27.6%

Rialto Street Troy Hill 24%

Hampshire Avenue Beechview 23%

Capital Avenue Brookline 22.35%

Flatbush Avenue Brookline 21.33%

Fallowfield Avenue Beechview 22%

Potomac Avenue Banksville 22%

Belasco Avenue Beechview 21%

Walbridge Street Elliot 20%

Dagmar Avenue Beechview 20%

Greenleaf Street Mt. Washington 19.6%

Schimmer Street North Side 19.6%

Tokay Street Homewood 19.25%

Coast Avenue Beechview 17.65%

Cuthbert Street Mt. Washington 16%

South Negley Avenue Squirrel Hill 15.81% (about 9 degrees!)

Glenbury Street East Brookline 14.96%

Shaler Street West End 14.5%

Brosville Street Allentown 14.35%

Federal Street North Side 13.70%

Buena Vista North Side 12.5%

Quarry Street Southside 12.5%

Antrim Street North Side 12.35%

Eleanor Street South Side 12.2%

Baytree Street North Side 11.12%

Yoder Street Greenfield 9.52%

With all that, steepness is but one way to rate the hill. If you combine steepness with cobblestones or slick brick or bad repairs this can make a given hill more difficult than one that is steeper. Most people overestimate steepness. The best way to measure a hill other than a topo map or surveying it is to use an inclinometer. Or some bicycle computers measure changes in elevation. The angle is then the arcsin of (change_in_elevation / distance). In rating a hill there is also length to consider. For example, Cutler on the North Side is very steep and cobblestoned but is only a couple of hundred feet long. For a given power output, length as well as steepness must be considered. Thus a a short steep hill compared to a longer hill of the same elevation change might be less work.

I'd like to see a number for the steep part of Hoosac in Greenfield. woof.

And Wetzel Road up in Shaler where it climbs up off Little Pine Creek Road. Probably not as steep but it just keeps coming. That one kicked my butt and laughed at me too.

I get in in my head to do Negley maybe once a month. I think pretty much anyone can do it as long as they have a low enough gear - people are way more afraid of hills than they should be. I'm not young, skinny, or in great shape, so my advice is just do it - you'll probably surprise yourself. (well, maybe that's not sound advice if you're pregnant!)

Then again, my house is at the top so I don't have to keep going afterwards. Feel free to come sit on my porch and catch your breath. I'm not claiming it's *easy*, just that it's doable.

May have mentioned this before, but when Sarah was expecting, she was told she could do anything she wanted, so long as her core body temp stayed below 100F and her heart rate stayed below 140bpm.

So, sure, Negley, go for it.

My nemesis is Federal on the NSide. It's a real tough climb just getting from North Ave to where Perrysville splits off, THEN it starts the 13.7% grade for most of a quarter mile. Downhill, I figure I'm going 45mph at the Perrysville split.

I'd like to see a number for the steep part of Hoosac in Greenfield. woof.

And Wetzel Road up in Shaler where it climbs up off Little Pine Creek Road. Probably not as steep but it just keeps coming. That one kicked my butt and laughed at me too.

i really like hoosac, especially after coming up greenfield from the bottom. my best guess is that it's probably about 18-20% at its steepest, based on the way hills feel according to the list i posted.

and wetzel is a heck of a hill. and the fact that it curves and you can't see the top until you're halfway up, when you were sure you only had another hundred feet left to go, it really hits you. and after such a pleasant shallow grade along little pine creek, too. next time you go up it, come down wible run into millvale, then go up geyer, on the other side of evergreen/babcock.

200 pounds so just the weight of my legs...

So you're way stronger than lighter people who can do the same riding you can. Do you ever look at them and think that? "hey buddy, throw a couple hundred pounds in your panniers and see if you can do that?" When I see someone much bigger than I am, I always think "don't forget what a wuss you are compared to the work they're doing on these hills." You know what'd be cool? A ride where weight is equalized. So eveyone had to load their bikes up until they're moving I don't know, 350 lbs around when they push the pedals. See what it's like.

(I've had this weird headache for the last 24 hours or so, and am useless for anything but staring at the screen. these are the kinds of thoughts that come out of my head when I do that for too long.)

When I see them blasting up a hill or listen to them talking about an awesome ride I think about that a little but it is more of sour grapes thing that motivates me to try harder.

I'm not sure the weight analogy works on hills. I've lost about 20 pounds over the last two years. I go up hills easier with 30 pounds of groceries now, than I did with my own body weight then. I'm just fitter now (which helps explain the weight loss). I think weight on hills is relative to the fitness of the individual. So a very fit 200 pound rider is going to smoke a less fit 150 pound rider. And for two riders of equal fitness the weight makes the difference, hence the titanium do-dads they sell to elite riders.

I was going up the Negley hill at a decent rate a few weeks ago, with my mind mostly focused on avoiding the cracks in the pavement. All of a sudden, I see another cyclist zoom right past me ("zoom" being a relative term in this case). I certainly wasn't expecting that.

hill climbing ability is based on the ratio of power output to total rider+bike weight. so if someone's outputting like 500 W, they might smoke a much lighter rider, but the lighter rider has to put out significantly less power to keep up.

generally the best climbers are built like 8-year-old girls (to borrow a phrase).

Hm, I never thought of it that way, I just try to enjoy passing all the skinny people on the way DOWN the hill...

I always thought about the type of bike I was riding as well as my mass. Riding a too small MTB w/ knobbies on it is easily four times harder than my new bike yet it still takes the same amount of time to get to work.

Makes you wonder.......

Oh federal street! I haven't done that in a few years but i always feel so accomplished when i do! Granny gear is key for any shitty climbs. I am not afraid to use it if i need to. There was a point in my Life when i started to ride instead of run and i never used my gears. I was always in my highest gear even on hills. That was when i Only rode around the lake at north park though. I was crazy.

I am surprised that baytree is 11% though. Seems less.

My heart rate has been out of control on hills I know that it is getting over 140bpms. That is why i cant do midnight mass anymore.

I rode up Negley on a whim a month or two ago. Kicked my ass. I should do that again...