Touring - ¿¿ Too much climbing ??

For our tour, we just noticed on bikely, that you can look at an elevation graph, which kinda scared the hell out of us...

Have a look:

http://www.bikely.com/maps/bike-path/Barcelona-Roscoff-North-France

( Move mouse over the Show menu, then Elevation Graph )

It seems to be 7000m climb in the first 480km.... where does that get graded in the 1 to 10 in difficulties? Me and ang dunno if its tooooo difficult to do fully loaded or not..

If you could stretch the graph so that x and y coordinate units were the same ratio, you would discover it's actually quite flat, the steepest grades amounting to something like 10 meters per kilometer and about 1 on your difficulty meter. But correct me if I'm terribly wrong, math isn't really my thing.:)

Try looking inbetween 160 and 320 kms... maybe stretched out it wouldnt be so bad, but looks pretty vertical to me, especially at 160kms. .. could be wrong though

Well, I don't have the latest version of flash so I can't see the elevation graph, but I assume you are worried about the pass over the mountains. Just got out my French Michelin atlas and the pass you appear to be taking is only at 1650m with a nice cruise down after that. No big deal, just take it slow and kick your bike into low gear. Anything is possible if you are willing to take your time and not pressure yourselves into arbitrary targets such as getting to a certain town by the end of the day or covering a set number of kilometers.

its between 160km into journey up to the pass. Just some parts looked bad by the graph, but at this time i aiiint got a map haha. Trying to find a good map shop in Barcelona that stocks them. This is why i prefer smaller cities, easier to find things ...

PS. Thanks for looking that up, appreciated, looking forward to the `cruising downhill`part of the pass...

Don't trust that feature of Bikely. I love that site, but that feature just doesn't work. I put in the route from the airport to the Frankfurt city center. The whole way is along the river, flat as a board, but that feature said it was 400 meters of climbing. Malarkey!

Alrighty, cheers, ill take your word for it, seeing as you recommended me the site. PS Becnal take a look at the route, slightly updated!

Ill just wait till i get the maps, and then see if the route needs altered. France has got way better roads, pity we hadnt spent all year learning French....

You can take a look at it on Google Earth, too.... this thread has gotten me started trying to find a utility to export .kml files to .gpx files, and then you can import into Bikely, and get a better idea of the actual profile, since you can have the route follow the road.

Yikes, I'm a geek!

Dean's 2 laws of cycling:
- its always uphill
- there's always a headwind

Have a look at a contour map and if the area is broadly within your capabilities (Kathmandu to Lhasa?) don't worry too much about hills, just take your time.

Alrighty, cheers, ill take your word for it, seeing as you recommended me the site. PS Becnal take a look at the route, slightly updated!

Ill just wait till i get the maps, and then see if the route needs altered. France has got way better roads, pity we hadnt spent all year learning French....


I know this will make you feel bad....but you're right.;)

@valygrl , im a bit like this myself, instead of being happy with a general route, i started zooming in and plotting exactly along the roads. Not that we will exactly stick to this route, as everyone says ´ya gotta be flexible ´...