Woah, dude! 8000 meters of climbing? I hope that's all 5 rides, not per ride. Plus on MTB makes it much tougher. Hats off to you.

I could almost rephrase the question to how many hours of training because the reality is climbing makes rides MUCH harder. 2 hrs in the flats compared to 2hrs in the mountains? No comparison!

My max mileage for a week was when I did the 600km qualifying brevet for BMB, I did 830km (520miles) that week. That was with 20k feet of climbing btw.

8000m is the total for the 5 rides
The most was 3500m on the South Downs Way (155km), with more than 95% off road in just under 12 hours. I plan to go back next year to (try to) go sub 10 hours

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Middle ring all the way

I dunno. I would've agreed until this weekend's ride. Normally I do my long rides up in the mountains outside Boulder, but Saturday I went north (for 4 hours total) and had only one 6 minute climb in the whole route. The ride was focussed on aerobic power and capacity and my power data showed that I put out way more power on this ride than any of my 4 hour mountain rides. Since there were no big descents, I was just hammering away mile after mile after mile.

Now, this weekend I will probably do the same effort but up in the hills, and then I can see how they compare. For the record, I've done plenty of mountain rides where I climbed at that same power level and the end result was lower averages and caolric output

Now, milage in the mountains vs. on the flats, THERE I'd say there's no comparison. I'll take a 20 mile flat ride over a 20 mile climb any day

Well, that's what I should have said. Mileage in the mountains vs. flats, no comparison!!

I'd like to get a power meter sometime, you use that for all your training? I mean, I think I can tell when my power's up or down but it would be nice to quantify it. Do you ever find yourself disbelieving your power output? I mean, maybe you look down and you feel stronger then the meter indicates?

But, power, it's more then just hills or flats anyway.. heat, hills, wind and humidity. And, if you're training alone or with a group. I push myself harder on a group training ride, easy to get lazy training alone. But mountains? Can't relax in the hills unless you ride the granny gear all day.

Try comparing used calories, thats even better. On an average weekend MTB stint, use about 3-4000
In hours I am between 15-20 hours/week these days and around 7-10000 calories/week

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Auribus teneo lupum

yeah, I did ( "For the record, I've done plenty of mountain rides where I climbed at that same power level and the end result was lower averages and caolric output ."). Agreed on caloric output being a stronger indicator of hwo difficult a ride is.

and no, I don't use it for all my training. I do bust it out for specific rides and workouts, and did race with it a few times last year. In general though, I tend to use my standard wheels instead.

I asume you have the powertap powermeter?

How good is it? Can it be used in the rain?
Does it have torque analysis? I thought I read that somewhere but can't find it anymore. Does the torque analysis look like the spinscan from computrainer?