Originally Posted by
bikecommuter13
That got me curious. So I looked around and found that the way to calculate gradient is ft in climb divided by ft in distance.
Is that right?...
My original intent of the post is to see if using a heavier touring bike with lower gear would make sense. I don't want to be pushing the bike with 20 lbs of stuff on the rack up a steep hill
To be precise it's rise over
run, or the horizontal "map" distance. The recorded distance up the slope will be greater, especially on steeper hill.
There's no cutoff for what a steep hill is, and IME how steep it feels varies with length. A 10% climb is steep, but if its short enough you can charge and crest it before you feel the effects. OTOH, a sustained climb of more than 5% can be a bear.
In hill climbing weight is the absolute enemy -- consider climbing stairs carrying a load vs empty handed. But lower gearing doesn't add weight. Consider dropping the inner ring down to 24 or 26t if it's a triple, if not get one.
My road bikes are doubles, and that's fine for most of the riding I do here in the Northeast, though I may have to work hard here and there. But for extended touring, I use a triple crank, set up exactly like my road bike, plus a "bailout" granny of 26t. It adds negligible weight, and is rarely used, but it's really appreciated when it's needed.