Touring - Gradient question

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

250m in 160km? Are those numbers right? Because that's like 0.1% gradient. Which is nothing.

I think so. If you click on the link and look below the map, there's a graph. I'm guessing, though it doesn't say, that the figures on the left vertical are meters. We're cycling from Esslingen (about half way on the graph) which looks to be around 400m altitude, to villinger, which is about 650m. So that's about 250m, over 160km. If it is 0.1 grad, then it looks more on the graph.
Or is it deceptive. is the fact that it's an overall, not reflecting the fluctuations along the way?

I don't know. This kind of thing makes my head hurt.

http://www.aufreisen.de/BWRad_WegKarte_0.asp?RIR=260514

To my eye it looks more like 300 to 700. 400 m over 160 km is nothing. It looks like the route follows a river, so this shouldn't be surprising. Have a blast!

Speedo

If that graph is meters on the vertical scale and kilometers on the horizontal scale then it does not picture the correct grade. The horizontal scale would have to be 1000 times longer with the same vertical scale to show the correct grade. In other words it's basically flat. Enjoy the ride!

Thanks for that. That's a weight off my mind. It looked somewhat hard going to my untrained eye., but I see now how distorted the view is (obviously for reasons of viewing).

Again, many thanks.

The route does follow a river, and it looks like the OP will be going upstream. The written description calls the route "Nahezu steigungsfrei und stetig bergab" (nearly free of climbing and continously downhill), so it looks like the people who laid out the route intended users to travel down a river valley with a gentle, almost imperceptible grade to make riding easy. Going up the same river valley might be a little more work, but still no serious climbing.

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).

Thanks for that. I appreciate the help.

Phil