Originally Posted by StephenH

One of the problems in all this is that elevation gain is not clearly defined in the first place. If you're riding along, the road rises six inches and drops back down, should that add 0.5' to your total elevation gain? Logically, it should, but on the other hand, climbing that 0.5' hill is zero effort expended over riding flat, so it's not really a measure of difficulty, which is what we generally want out of those numbers. Around here, a ride with 5,000' of climbing means it has a hundred 50' hills, which does introduce some difficulty, but is not exactly the same as climbing one 5,000' climb in the middle of the ride, either. Or, if I include all the little bumps in the chip seal, my normal rides all have about 20,000' of climbing.