Originally Posted by
globecanvas
50 miles / 3500 feet is a decently hilly ride. It's all relative to what you are used to of course.
2-3% is enough of a hill to feel like a climb, 5% is a real hill, 7-10% is getting steep, and over 10% is definitely steep. Very few paved roads will get over about 15% for more than a very short stretch. But again the difficulty is all relative to what you are conditioned for. Most anybody would say that a mile at 10% is a tough hill, but a casual flatlander might not be able to get up at all, and a rider who lives in the mountains might be able to ride hard all the way up.
I find this to be the easiest ride-mapping site, it will give you elevation gain for any ride you map out:
http://ridewithgps.com
Yeah, try ridewithgps.com. It's free.
Select Add Content -->Map Ride.
Enter your starting city or address or zipcode to get the map to the right place.
Click a point, then click another farther down the road. The graph and distances will change on the fly as you draw the route. It's fast and easy. Undo if you make a mistake. Save the route and give it a name at the end.
When trying out possible new routes, I use the Terrain checkbox, and zoom way in. Then the hills show 3-D shaded, and there are contour lines every 40 feet of elevation, with darker lines every 200. So I can get a quick estimate of the size of the hills.
For me:
1% a slight grade is visible.
2% still easy.
4% a real climb
6% starting to be hard work. Occasional standing to work different muscles.
8% hard work, alternating standing and sitting (I have pretty low gears. Many riders are standing full time here)
10% standing up.
15% standing, going 4 mph
20% climbing as slow as I can balance, about 3-3.5 mph