Originally Posted by FBinNY

I guess the only rule of thumb is to read posts and take them at face value.

In post No.4 the OP says he was trying to climb 200' in half a mile. I converted the half mile in to feet (rounded off for easy math) and came up with the roughly 200/2500 rise/run or 8% grade.

Of course, some might quibble with 2500' for half a mile, but I consider it close enough for our purposes.