In this part of the world a hike or a bike ride is not only measured by how far one has travelled, but also by the “Höhenmeter” – the vertical height climbed.
Embach is just 6km from its bigger sister village, Lend, but it also lies 400m higher. A 6km bike ride on the flat is within most people’s capabilities, but to pedal from Lend to Embach is a serious challenge as half the distance is a 12 per cent climb, with hairpin bends and significant drops to one side,
Yesterday’s bike ride took us past the Dachstein mountain range. The 77km circuit began with a long and steady climb from 710m to 1200m – but after that there were ups and downs for the rest of the way. In total we climbed 900 Höhenmeter.
How do Austrians know how many Höhenmeter they have climbed? Well, for a start the legs give some idea – the knackerdness factor. But today many active people have watches or bike computers which not only tell the altitude, but calculate the total climbed in a certain period too. They are surprisingly accurate – I can tell from my Suunto if I am upstairs or downstairs.
We have ridden along the road past the Dachstein a good many times but I can never resist taking photos of its huge, grey cragginess rearing out of the dark woods, and to wonder that in the past few years I have been able to climb to three of its summits – something I had never imagined I’d be doing before coming to Austria.
Ah hohenmeter eh? How come this statistic was never mentioned when you were pedalling around the lanes of Hertfordshire? I think you should also offset it by the amount of kilometres you spend freewheeling down the hills!
ReplyDeleteI have enjoyed my own youth life pedalling to and from school, shopping rounds, scout excursions and last but not least holidays in the UK with my family exploring the countryside on a bicycle. I never thought about getting fit or even joining any for of competition on 2 wheels. It was just a natural way of transportation. For quite a few years my bike got pretty "dusty" as my interests for cars grew and got the needed exercise with a racket. But it was not wasted time after all as the time for me to become a parent and good memories from my childhood soon made me pick up the family tradition of spending holidays and our spare time on cycle trips. Kids where out on 2 wheels at a very early stage and we have learned to have fun and explore pedalling through unfamiliar scenery quite often. As a natural cause of this we got quite fit without even giving any altitude meters a thought. We have in our " mid forties" been motivated to take the challenge of joining races. We soon understood that if you really want to perform well you have to put your focus into your heart rate and and keep pushing limits to see any progress. All this was done by searching for hills or even winding the resistant on the spinning bike to "high". Well we did it and delivered a respectable time on numerous races, but it "bloody hard work" to keep up there with the pros. Did we enjoy it?? Yes we did, but find it quite alright just to be exploring cyclists, practise on the odd single track, and visit new places on our bikes. But you never know one day if the motivation is back we are once again attending another race and in search for hills to get in shape. I agree “Höhenmeter” is much more fun with a Suunto.
ReplyDelete