Originally Posted by
gauvins
Very very preliminary. Starting on the basis of the
ACA'S Sierra Cascades route. We may get underway at Lake Isabella and ride the SC up to Ellensburg (WA) and then Seattle.
I'll look into the course profile before either committing to the idea or raising issues with the kids.
(wrt profile -- I find it useful to obtain a gpx file from a preliminary gMaps route. I'll run the data on an Excel spreadsheet to locate critical points --
just did a test run with data from a killer-hill near where I live, that I was unable to climb loaded. Turns out that the gradient reaches 30% (!) and is solidly above 15% on 400 meters or so. Even pushing the bike was challenging. It is these kinds of obstacles that concern me the most. Also wanted to point out that the data used by
gpsVizualiser is terrific.)
are you in Quebec City or elsewhere in the province of Quebec? If Montreal, I'd be curious of where the 30% is.
I have no idea what is the steepest gradient I've ridden up loaded, or unloaded for that matter. I rode up and down Burke Mtn in Vermont (I think) where on this webpage it says it has max gradients of 18%.
http://www.northeastcycling.com/Mtn_Climbs.html
I was able to ride up it, mostly unloaded, (prob one pannier) but I know in Costa Rica I've not been able to ride up a short section that must have been 25 or 30, just stupid steep. I was out of shape a bit and was getting over a bad cold, but it was just nutso steep, even going back and forth across the road I couldnt do it.
Latin America has a lot of wacko gradients, and would be a real challenge for heavy touring. I have family who lives in Wales, and the town where they live, there are numerous "1 in 5" and "1 in 4" hills right in town , 20 and 25%. Tough hills.
I'd have to say, being able to know with a reasonable amount of accuracy, the gradients of climbs would be neat--and like you say Gauvins, to be able to compare things to climbs that you know you can do, or are at your limit for a given bike+load weight.
the times I've played with my smart phone to do gps tracks, I've never been entirely happy with the gradients shown when I put the files into google earth and bring it up as a profile and all that. Played with this stuff just a bit a few years ago then stopped.