Originally Posted by
Bike Jedi
This is going to sound dumb, but how do I learn to recognize what the grades are, what I can personally do, and eventually get to a place so that if someone mentions numbers like this, I can visualize something and know what we are talking about?
OK...I think that I am a pretty fit cyclist, but I have no idea what these numbers truly mean. So how can I look at something on the computer, like a google maps equivalent for elevation, and then go look at roads I have ridden to see what numbers this will compare to that I bike?
But I have no idea what this looks like. I think I climb roads that are 13% now, but no way for that long that I am aware of. So how do I figure out the elevation of roads I now ride to compare?
These questions are for anyone.
Most people, in my experience, grossly overestimate slope percentage/degrees. This is true in cycling, and in skiing. I recently purchased a Wahoo Elemnt Bolt GPS and it has % grade as one of the functions that can be displayed. Now I'm sure there are some issues with the way it measures, smooths, calculates, etc - that could cause a wonderful BF arguement, but at least it's a reasonable point to understand and get a feel for how much gradient you're actually riding.
Last week we did a 5 mile climb that averaged 6% (in the Catskills in New York). One section of 1.3 miles averaged 10.5%, and as I was climbing that looking at my GPS I saw it hit numbers of 17.5% to 18%. At those points I was down to under 4mph, and almost had to resort to criss-crossing the road to keep going.
I think I had a point here...haha. I guess it's that until you get out and ride and have some objective measurement in real time, it's very hard to go back later and correlate your ride to a map online. When someone tells me they rode an average 10% hill for a few miles, I take it with a grain of salt especially if they don't use a GPS for real time observations, and later have available mapping data (again, none of which is perfect/infallible). As a rule of thumb, if a cyclist tells you they rode 10% for 3 miles, assume they rode 5% for a mile. If a skier tells you they skied a 50% grade for 1000 vertical feet, assume it was 30% for 150 vertical feet (unless they have the cred to back it up).