PDA

View Full Version : wt. vectors: Cycling vs. hiking



squeezebox
11-18-2015, 12:27
An exercise for the engineers out there. (Thanks guys esp. JK)
So what's the difference between riding a bicycle up a 10% gradient vs hiking up a 10% gradient? I know hikers go up much steeper stuff. I want to reduce variables. An average skin out hiking wt. with food & water? pack wt 20 lb? wearables 5lb? food and water for 2 days 10 lb? Round up to 40 lb for easy math.
Bicycle; off bicycle, shoe to helmet wt? 7 lb or so, round up to 10 for math. Bicycle 20 lb. bags 10 lbs. (I know that's the bags crazy heavy, but imagine carrying 5 day packs instead of 1 single pack) that makes bicycle pack wt. 5 lb heavier than hiker pack wt. 25 lb. But the cyclist will carry less food so that kinda evens out the pack wts.
That gives me a skin out hiker wt. of 40 lbs.
Cycling skin out wt. sounds like an extra 25 lb. make it 65 lb.
Let's make the hiker 200 lb. skin in.
So all of the hiker wt. is on his feet.
But a certain amount of the loaded bicycle wt. is on the tires.
So what's the difference in necessary power out put of hiker vs. cyclist wt.
I'm nor here to argue hiker total wt. lower that if you want. but lower cyclist skin out to 60 lb. not much less. keep cyclist's body wt the same as hiker body wt.
A lot of the bicycle tourists I've seen might be carrying closer to 100. Like a big 3 lb floor pump and a full blown coleman 2 burner car camping stove. Stupid things I've seen on bicycles is a different thread.
Thanks!

Scorpion
11-20-2015, 20:16
A 10% climb with a loaded bike is tough. Assume a 1000 ft. vertical climb. It is really hard climbing the 10% on a bike due to it being 10%. Backpacking it's around 2 miles for the 1000 ft. climb. At 500 feet per mile I can just about hike my normal pace. I'd rather backpack up a 10% climb anytime than bike up 10% on a loaded bike.
Scorpion
GA-ME 04
Southern Tier 06 (Cross Southern US on loaded bike)
Tour du Canada 07 (Cross Canada-light bike-supported tour)