HomeCalendar
Results
Classifieds
Rides
Clubs
Links
E-Mail List
ACA / USAC
Facts is facts....
Page Last Updated On: Sunday June 22, 2008
These are some of the most popular and accessible road climbs in the Albuquerque area. The grades are computed from my altitude gain measurements using an altimeter.
| Where | Length (miles) | Gain (feet) | Length (kilometers) | Gain (meters) | Grade |
| La Luz* (1st cattle guard to trailhead lot) | 2.3 | 950 | 3.7 | 290 | 7.8% |
| Las Huertas (dirt portion only) | 7.1 | 2,300 | 11.4 | 700 | 6.1% |
| Sandia Crest (Triangle to parking lot) | 13.5 | 3,700 | 21.7 | 1,130 | 5.2% |
| Tramway (I-25 to La Luz entrance) | 4.1 | 750 | 6.6 | 230 | 3.5% |
*Many riders in Albuquerque refer to this road as Juan Tabo. It passes Juan Tabo picnic ground and ends at the La Luz trailhead parking lot.
Feeling good about your climbing? Wondering how you stack up against the big boys & girls? Just for comparison, here are numbers on one of the more famous Hors Category climbs in the Tour de France, and for Colorado's most intense hill climb, the highest paved road in the US.
| Where | Length (miles) | Gain (feet) | Length (kilometers) | Gain (meters) | Grade |
| Mount Ventoux (Provence) | 13 | 5,300 | 21 | 1,615 | 7.6% |
| Mount Evans, Colorado (tops out at 14,264 ft) | 28 | 7,000 | 45 | 2,130 | 4.7% |
You can see that La Luz and Mt. Ventoux have similar grades. But the French road is much longer. If you ride up La Luz five and a half times, you would do the about same amount of work as climbing Ventoux. Of course, you get to recover five times too so that skews the experience just a bit. And I certainly won't mention the fact that just getting to Ventoux in the Tour would exhaust most mortals.
As for local records up La Luz, they seem to be anecdotal at best. My friend Damian Calvert has discovered that Bart Bowen or Scott Price have the unofficial record at ~11:15. And Ryan Blickem with a race wheelset and "mean tailwind" set a 11:38. Anyone have any other info or fast times, let me know and I'll put them up for discussion.
If you are interested in other US hill climbs, here is a site with lots of interesting info. Most of the rides are in Arizona, but scroll down for some in New Mexico, Colorado and other states.
So how fast might Lance climb La Luz (once)?
If you really want to know, here is an estimate based on his record time of 58 minutes for the climb portion of Ventoux in the 2002 Tour.
