How can I see the grade?
 

I like to plan a ride, however I like to see the grade of the ride at certain area.
I usually plan my ride on Bike Route Toaster. IS there a way for me to see the grade and maybe document it?
I just need to see if I can ride some areas before I even go there.

Someone of the board created this, how is it done?

You need a great caddy who can detect the subtle grain of a grade.

Seriously, bikeroutetoaster.com is another site you could try. Be forewarned that sometimes the elevation maps on these sites can be WAY off.

you can do short sections on this website to see the grade of certain hills, it seems to be pretty close to my Garmin
http://www.toporoute.com/cgi-bin/bicycle.cgi

On Bikeroutetoaster , click use elevation data, then you can go to the Summary tab, and you get an elevation profile that gives you a pretty good idea of grade.

I like Bikeroutetoaster because it is much less of a memory hog than Mapmyride.

mapmyride is ok. however, the longer your route is the less granular the data. if you plot beginning and end points on individual climbs, it's quite accurate.

BikeRouteToaster doesn't give you a nice clear (graphics) of each part to see the elevation (or grade)

Some of the on-line mapping web sites will show you gradient, but as far as I know, they are all terribly inaccurate, especially for shorter distances. For a long climb (more than 1 mile), you can look at the elevation difference between the top and bottom and divide by the distance.

What I used to do:

Plot the ride in Bikeroutetoaster. Then dump it into Google earth. Once in Google earth you can "fly" the route in a tour. If you want to figure grade in google earth, put the pointer over the start of the hill and get the elevation. Then do the same thing at the top. Calculate the difference and divide it by the distance and you've got grade.

Now I've got a Garmin 705 which tells me "live" what kind of grade I'm riding.

As for guesstimating it while riding, my garmin has helped me develop a pretty good eye for it. Still, here's how I rate 'em:

1%-2%: false flat. You may think you're not going up, but your speed and cadence will drop and you won't know why. Kind of like riding into a headwind.

3%-5%: easy climb. You can see that you're going uphill, but if you shift down a couple cogs, you won't be working any harder to keep your cadence. Minor inconvenience.

6%-9%: Ok, now you're climbing. You've definitely downshifted and are starting to work. At this point you need to pay attention to your heart rate and pace on a long climb as you CAN blow up if you don't.

10%-13%: Hard climbing. Low gears. Might need to stand up or alternate positions as you climb. Most roads don't have sustained grades this steep for very long.

13%-16%: At this point it's about survival. Stand up, mash, do what you have to do.

16%-20%: Unless you live in the mountains, it's actually not very easy to even find roads this steep, and if you do, they'll certainly be off the beaten path. Pretty much not navigable in slippery conditions. You don't want to live on this street in the winter unless you own a winch. This is where you can start calling a climb a "wall" and nobody will argue about it. I hit some sand grinding up an 18% hill here this spring, lost traction on the rear wheel and went down....at about 3mph.

20%+: I've heard of 'em, but I've never seen one. Not sure how they'd keep the pavement on one of these.

There is one place I ride here where surrounding topography creates an illusion, the first time rode there I crested the hill and could see almost 3 miles of road ahead, it looked flat, slightly downhill. Turns out it averages nearly 4% for 3 miles. Whats worse is its a rough section of road, its maddening because it doesn't ever look like your going uphill.

Like this?

They don't.

http://members.tccoa.com/greenbird/Temp/GunClubRoad.jpg