Going uphill is much, much harder than going downhill. This is an accepted truth.
Except when it isn’t, of course. Without getting too bogged down in my thoughts on my local, sketchy, (normally) wet, traffic-laden descents with awful rim brakes, then throw in some blind bends and side roads spewing impatient motorists into your path, it is also true that there is (in my mind) definitely something more ‘zen’ about going uphill – It’s a lot harder to experience a high-speed ‘off’ whilst going up a 10% incline for starters, so store that thought for future motivation.
Going up really is a state of mind, and as practically every blog on the subject on the world wide web will state very early on, it’s 90% head, 10% legs.
Whilst there is plenty of truth in that statement, we also need to take into consideration our own fitness and how steep the hill is that faces us.
So let’s dip into the incline and the length of a climb to start with as this is an unchanging constant. At every club there is a selective patois with yardsticks to describe any given climb (I’m sure all clubs do this?), the most widely used of which is “it’s like (add qualifiers here e.g. ‘a slightly longer’) Kiln Lane”
https://veloviewer.com/segments/987470
So it’s 0.3 miles long, 117ft climbing, average gradient of 8.3%, up to 10% max. We would describe it as a ‘kicker’ – it’s a sub-2 minute effort at our level but a sub-1 minute effort if you’re mega fit and/or a mountain goat. For the beginner, it’ll look & feel like “a wall” but patience & practice is your friend… here’s another one very similar in Dukinfield(?)
https://veloviewer.com/segments/9790421
I tend to gauge these efforts by the duration of the climb, rather than the length or the elevation. How hard I ride them depends how I’m feeling on any given day, but on a good day I’m at my limit by the time I get to the top (but I know where the top is, so that’s OK..!)
Approach the kicker with caution if you’re not sure where the top is, but when you’ve ridden it a few times and got a feel for it, attack it, it’s a great way to measure improving fitness.