Originally Posted by
thePig
It can be really hard to tell the gradient from a photo. On a bike (particularly when it is loaded) 10% or more is steep and anyone that says otherwise is lying. There are very hills / mountains that have gradients of more than 10% for any great distance.
Anyway, have posted photo which has a good sideways view of a road. The stretch going from right to left is 15%. This came after cycling 4 miles at 10%....I was in pain.
Amen, brutha!
Originally Posted by
coasting
I've seen a few posts mentioning monster steep hills of 20%. This really confuses me because I once found a hill that was so steep (but thankfully short) it was hard even to walk up. The road sign said 10% so I can't imagine 20%. Is this a bit of BF exaggeration?
Can someone post some pics of steep hills and state their gradients?
Thanks
There are quite a few of them around. Usually, though, anything approaching 20% is for a very short distance, especially here in the US. Like 20 yards or something. I have (somehow) ridden up a local climb here in SoCal, called May Canyon. It has a couple very short pitches of 22-21%, like maybe 10-yards or so. Most of the climbing is around 7% with shallow sections thrown in for an overall average of like 4-5%. I'm afraid I don't have any pics, as I was busy doing other things at the time.
Here's the hardest climb according to climbbybike.com: the
Scanuppia - Malga Palazzo in Italy (7.5km, 17.6% avg):
