Originally Posted by
big john
Mostly by experience. If you don't have electronics on your bike you can look up climbs and ride loops you do and see what the numbers are, or ask people who have done those rides while measuring gain, grades, etc. After enough of it when someone tells you a grade is 10% or a climb gains 1000 feet in 5 miles, you know how your body handles it.
Where are you riding?
Denver Colorado and foot hills. I am up and down all day. Just to get away from my house, I am usually immediately climbing short hills. I don't climb passes, but not because I won't or can't, just because I haven't gone to do it. I am pretty confident that I have climbed all different levels of vertical by now just based on where I live and the terrain I ride, I just don't know how to visualize the numbers yet. I know I-70 coming out of the mountains has a 12% grade if I remember correctly, it's been a while, and that's a long run. So I can visualize that, but outside of that, I am clueless. There are a couple of roads that are a quarter mile, half mile, etc...that are very severe and most people can't climb them at all, and I can without a problem, and I would be curious how to gauge some of those roads as to what the true "vertical" part of it is. I would venture to guess, once I get a couple of those down in my mind with matched numbers, I can then just visualize those roads and think "x" miles of this. That's what I am trying to figure out at least.
I have not climbed
Lookout Mountain which is close to where I ride around all the time. I have jetted down it, but never climbed it. I know I can, and I know what that visual looks like, but I have no real understanding of the numbers around it.
So I was just looking at this, and this says it's 5% grade is that correct? So that means it's a 5% vertical climb? I would of assumed that Lookout Mountain was like I-70 coming down, and more along the lines of over 10%. So it shows you how clueless I am. If lookout mountain is 5%, then I am not touching anywhere close to 12%, and I don't want too then either. I see a lot of road bike folks on Lookout mountain all the time, and that seems to be as difficult in many ways without getting up to major mountains and passes as it gets. Perhaps I am underestimating what Pikes Peak is really like then. It's been 20 years since I have been there even though I can see it out my window but in a far distance.
I am just trying to understand the numbers so I know what folks are talking about more, and also so I can plan routes ahead of time and instead of knowing the miles, I might know how much climbing or descending I have, can visualize it ahead of time, and plan appropriately. Currently, the best I can do is look at a map on Google and see the mileage. In Colorado depending on which direction you are heading, that can mean two drastic different types of riding.