How hilly is your average commute?
 

Curious to hear responses on this. One reason I commute as much as I can on my road bike is because of the lighter weight on the hills.

Mine is about +600 ft 9 miles inbound and +900 ft 10 miles outbound. I definitely prefer having less hills in the morning!

419 inbound
515 outbound

This is for my standard, 10 mile route, which I don't usually take going to work but almost always take going home.

My route here in Okeechobee is +5 feet going and -5 feet heading home. It's VERY flat here..

Tractor Tom in Okeechobee, FL

1100 inbound, 1900 back home. That's as flat as it gets around here.

Over a 1000 ft of climbing over a few miles each way.

Are you going over skyline every day? I used to live in the west hills and worked in downtown Portland. The commute was all downhill on the way in, all uphill on the way back.

I live in the right on the river in downtown PDX and work over by Nike in Beaverton. I go up through Washington Park every day :)

Not very hilly.

My current, and usual commute, is only about 80' of climbing on the way in to work and about 130' of gain on the way home.

I've had some hilly commutes and they can be challenging but they make you stronger, that's for sure. Kudos to those with substantial climbs that they do on an every day basis!

It's right at, a few meters above sea level on the Columbia River estuary,
where it is snowing now..

Time to pump up the Studded tires on that standby bike ....
that beer in the tavern wont drink itself :beer:

I live in Chicago, one of the flattest major cities on the planet. My 15 mile one-way commute along the shore of lake Michigan is dead flat, except for this KILLER 15' high ancient shoreline ridge right at the end that's roughly a 1-2% climb. Brutal!

Shanghai is flat as a pancake. Only hills I have on my entire commute are a couple of bridges over canals - one about 5m high, the other about 12m high.

My biggest hill is an overpass.

+1000 inbound, +1200 coming home. Not too many flat rides around here either.

My morning profile:

http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=233756

To work: 21m, +979ft
To home: 21m, +930ft

I'm 33 feet above sea level. I cross one levee that rises maybe 10m. It is the secondary levee for the Rio Grande. There isn't a significant "climb" in existence within 100 miles of me.

Flat if I take the MUP, with only about 150 feet during the last mile on the streets.

1000' either direction. More slow rise gain on the way in, except for a short steep one and a longer steady one. On the way home, lots is concentrated into the last 7 miles, with a 2.5 mile slog and then a short steady climb.

The steepest climb is a bridge crossing a river.

420 inbound (almost all the climbing is at the end)
330 outbound
Commute is about 11.5 miles in both directions

1500ft-2000ft depending on route. Before I start taking detours...

Mine too. I sometimes wish my committee were more hilly so I'd get more exercise, but generally I'm glad it's so flat. I can mall my route a lot more hilly if I add a mile or so to my route, which I occasionally do if the weather is nice and I'm feeling energetic enough.

Edit: Adding specific data...

According to my Strava app on a recent commute home, I had 73 feet of elevation gain over 7.3 miles. Pretty flat.

Where do you people get your elevation data? I've got a GPS tracker (Cyclemeter) on my iPhone but the elevation data are essentially worthless. Eg, on four different days commuting the same route and distance to work, it showed elevation gains of 1170, 4000, 1945 and 1534 feet. Even if I throw out the outlier (4000), that would average out to about 1500 feet of climbing one way, which would mean a roundtrip elevation gain of 3000 feet over 30 miles. I doubt it. My route is hilly but I don't think it has that much climbing.

I look at mapmyride.com. It's not all that accurate, but in the ballpark at least.