Originally Posted by Gotte
I can never think in height, and find it pretty difficult thinking in distance (unless I know it). I;m going to be cycling up hill for a day or so. I;ve looked at an elevation map of the route, and it rises 250 meters in about 160 km. What kind of gradient is that (more on a "blimey, you'll have your work cut out," way than actual 3:10 or whatever).
Thanks
Grade of a road can be easy to calculate. If the road increases 1 meter in height for every 10 meters traveled, then the grade is 1/10 multiplied by 100 (to get percent), this would be .1*100 = 10% grade. If height increases 1.5 meters for every 10 meters traveled, the grade is 1.5/10*100 =15%.
In your case, assuming those numbers are correct, the grade would be (as others have pointed out)
250m/160,000m * 100 = 0.15% (less than 1% grade).