What is the N.P.C.C.I. you ask? Good question. Here is an extract from a blog post I posted on January 24th 2012.
After a rather hilly climb a while back, I was chatting to a mate who asked how that compares to what the pros did on say the Tour de France. I said I imagined the pros would do what I did yesterday for their warm ups. So what about compared to other people I cycle with was his next question. Hmm, good question. So I am bringing back an idea I had last year at one point. The Non Pro Cycling Climbing Index. It is a piece of the proverbial to figure out and hopefully will give me a way to compare my climbing against my mates. Keep in mind it is purely based on distance climbed and distance travelled. Speed has no place in a climbing index for the non pros amongst us.
So, there you have it. It is a climbing index for cyclists. It had a bumpy start. The first algorithm didn’t take into account the length of a ride. Well it did, but it didn’t reward a longer ride. The 2nd version was a complete disaster. I think I combined 2 different ideas I had and the maths behind it was fundamentally flawed. Lewy and The Duke both picked it up in the comments on the blog. Back to the drawing board.
The 3rd version was a lot better, but there was still something that wasn’t quite right. I enlisted the help of a couple of mates, Shane Black and Wayne “The Duke” Flint. Using Google docs we played around with a few different ideas I had and settled on a formula that we all think balances things nicely.
To break it down to its basic formula. The index awards 20 points per 1000m of climbing. It also adds 10 points per 100kms ridden. The 2 figures are then added up to give you a number that represents the N.P.C.C.I. for any given ride.
Thanks to Ben Hughes, my coding guru, it is now all presented on this blog. At the top of the page you can see an option for the N.P.C.C.I. Calculator. Click there and using your Strava ride ID you can have your N.P.C.C.I. calculated. Why Strava? Well, mainly because it is the site I use for all my riding. It is building up a great community and it has some fantastic features. Also, using the one site means a lot less work for me in the background.
Over the next few weeks I will be adding some more info to the site. Adding a table of rides to compare your N.P.C.C.I. to. Adding some context to the index, so any ride with a N.P.C.C.I. of over 100 is EPIC! I am also looking for a good name for the index score. Something that sounds good when talking to your mates about the N.P.C.C.I. “Hey, I scored 102.3 Merckx on yesterdays ride!” I am sure there will be some better ideas.
If you have any ideas for the N.P.C.C.I. please send them in. You can comment below or send your thoughts to npcci (at) norbtech dot com.
Thanks again to Ben Hughes, Wayne Flint and Shane Black for all their help. It is greatly appreciated.
