kandnhome

Google just released a free tool that lets you look at almost the entire planet by just typing in an address. It gives elevation, latitude, and longitude, among other nifty features. The program used to be called Keyhole 3, now called Google Earth. You can find it here:

https://desktop.google.com/download/earth/index.html

when combined with this nifty page (found with the help of Google), you can calculate distance from latitude/longitude derived from Google Earth:

https://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~cvm/latlongdist.html

take the elevation from your starting point of your climb, subtract it from (or add it to) the end point of the climb, and figure the distance (assuming it's a fairly straight road) and you'll have a pretty good estimate of the grade of the climb.

It would probably work pretty well for twisty climbs if you took more measurement points and added them up. Either way, it's still a pretty rough figure, but it'll get you in the ball park, and it's free, except for a little time on your part.

Hope someone finds this useful.

terrymorse 

Currently Wintel only.

kandnhome

Ahh, yes, I should have mentioned, the Google Earth program is not mac or linux friendly. Although I run AMD processors only, so maybe Wintel and WMD only? hehe bad joke.

danch

Bummer, the regular ****le maps works great on Linux

Bolo Grubb

tag to check out later

cydewaze

Can you guys see this:
https://seamless.usgs.gov/website/seamless/viewer.php

Some of these things I can see from work (because I'm at a .gov) but not from home. The USGS has some maps you can zoom in on and pick a spot and get elevation, and also pick two spots and get a distance. Then all you need is a calculator.

oboeguy

Dang it, knew I should have downloaded it this morning. They've suspended downloads for now.

poopypants

Thanks! That tool is very handy ... although I have a climb in my regular ride which I could have sworn was 10000' in 1/2 a mile ... turns out the climb that absolutely kills me at the moment goes from 140 to 520 feet ... what a letdown... shows why I love the flats so much I guess.

TheKillerPenguin

I agree cydewaze, awesome tool! thanks.
With that and MS Streets and Trips '02, I'm unstoppable!!!

TheKillerPenguin

woah cydewaze, is this thing really 100% accurate? I'm getting a lot more elevation change than I expected.

Gienek

can someone send me an alternitive link to this download, it seems to be unavailable at the moment.

davismule

With Macs recent announcement, must we say Mintel now?

nitropowered

Apple got a patent for the term Mactel.

But anywho, I hate it when things don't work with Mac (my main machine) or Linux (my current main machine as my Powerbook is being repaired for a bad harddrive). What sucks evenmore are webpages that only work with windows and IE. I do have a windows machine (pretty nice one too) but I hate using it because its Windows. There is seriously something wrong when my 900mhz Pentium 3 running Gentoo Linux is way faster than my 2.2GHz Athlon XP 3200+ running XP doing basic tasks like web browsing, checking email, and word processing. And I even just did a reformat and clean install of XP.

davismule

Mactel? Oh man... at one time I would have thought that to be
one of the signs of the end of the world.
I have calmed down a bit though. Progress be progress.

kandnhome

Now THIS tool is friggin' awesome. It can make elevation profiles, and do even more. Excellent find. Thanks a lot man.

chroot

Yes, you're much better off using the USGS topo maps to find grades. The average grade over a long trip is much less important than the grade on its hardest hill, and a topo map will show you the grade at any point.

johnny99

Remember that:
1. topo maps are only accurate to 40 or 100 feet (depending on scale), so they will not give you accurate slope information for very small hills
2. unless your road is very straight (unlikely on a big hill), you cannot accurately determine the length of a road from a topo map. Use your odometer to find distance.
3. do not trust "cumulative elevation gain" measurements from computerized topo maps. Real world roads are graded to avoid many of the ups and downs on the map.

Maps are great for figuring out where and how high are the hills are along a long route, but do not trust them for foot-by-foot accuracy.

tanguy frame

TREULY AMAZING.
now I know.