Road Bike Racing - Guide to you local categorized climbs

Hello, not a racer myself, but while watching the tour I've become curious about the climb categories. Is there a resource for finding some of the categorized climbs in a given area?

Just curious. I certainly don't encounter anything hairy around Dallas, but I'd be interested to know the categories of some of the climbs I've hit while touring for perspective.

--and I see I've managed a typo in the title line, which I can't edit. Sorry.

I could be wrong, but I believe the categories are partially based on where in a stage a climb appears, so the same climb could be categorized differently depending on if it appears at the beginning or end of a stage, so categorizing local hills may not be possible.

However, a local bike club in NYC has compiled some of the climbs in the area listing the Distance, Rise, & Average grade, which can be used to compare to the categorized climbs of the tour. I know there is a website that lists the distance, rise & grade for the climbs in the tour, but can't seem to find the link.

NYC Area Hills:
http://www.nycc.org/re_regional_grades.html

there's a generalized overview here (http://www.velonews.com/live/text/246.html) but I'll reprint it:

* CAT. 4 Usually less than 3km in length, an easy pitch that amounts to no more than a sustained rise in the road.
* CAT. 3 Slightly harder, up to 5km in length.
* CAT. 2 Between 5km and 10km, and steeper than a 4-percent grade.
* CAT. 1 Long and steep. Between 10km and 20km, and steeper than a 5-percent grade.
* HORS CATÉGORIE (HC) or Above Category -The longest, steepest mountain climbs. Extremely difficult, sometimes 15km to 20km, with grades often exceeding 10 percent.


In Dallas, I think the nastiest you'll find is near White Rock Lake, around Lakewood (like between Abrams and the lake). There are a couple steep hills, but they're short....

typically this formula:

Cat 1: over 1000 meters

Cat 2: 600 to 1000 meters

Cat 3: 300 to 599 meters

Here's a link to climbs in California. The "author" uses a slightly different formula than TdF, but comes up with some pretty similar results. The nice thing about the formula is that it's transportable.

http://www.mishalov.com/pierre_hill_data.html

Gary