Measuring your hill's percentage figure

[Sector]

Sanoodi, and fitness

Pete
Yes there is a bit of guesswork in getting the figures off the graph, but it just amazes me that the map contains elevation data in sufficient detail to even come close to my measurements on the ground.

I'm 62, and at 85 kg a little overweight for my 6ft 1.5in height. I have a problem with my right knee that the doctor doesn't seem too interested in, and I find its usually best to try to ignore. Self-diagnosis suggests it mght be patellar tendonitis. I pedal when I feel like it, but sometimes let the Quando do all the work.

It seems to be OK to go off-road on Sanoodi. In fact the short route I gave previously is a cycle track, and doesn't show on a road map.

Pete/Sector

 

[flecc]

Yes, I found it ok on a cycle track, but it does seem to have some bugs. The longest 14% section of the hill I live up resolutely shows as 6%, not exactly a minor error!

I think it calculates from contours, and those are a twisting tangle at that point, so it could be the winding very close is confusing it.

Similarly, the known 20% part of Titsey Hill is impossible to display, showing all sorts of odd variations, including downhill and wrong gradient even though the marker points are in the correct order. Again that has tightly twisting contours, so it's tolerances might take it across adjacent lines of the same contour.
.

 

[JohnInStockie]

Calculating the gradient

Sorry guys, I dont know how to work out the gradient. According to Sanoodi, I have a rise of 19.7 feet in 0.07 of a mile. How do you calculate the gradient from that?

Thanks

John

 

[coops]

Well, as a decimal (where 0 is flat and 1 is vertical) or percentage e.g. 0.1, its 19.7 / (0.07 x number of feet in a mile);

To express as a percentage, simply multiply by 100 e.g. 0.1 x 100% = 10%. If a fraction is preferred e.g. 1 in 10, either divide the decimal gradient into 1 or percentage gradient into 100 to convert.

Sorry, I don't recall no. of feet in a mile

Then, when you've done all that... go outside & look at the road, rub your chin (essential), & think "now, does that look steep or not"

Stuart.

 

[JohnInStockie]

Aha, 1 mile = 5280 feet (Ive was raised on metric Im afraid) Therefore its 19.7 / (0.07 x 5280) = 19.7/369.6 = 0.053 = 5.3% = 1 in 19.

I think sanoodi has issues...

 

[JohnInStockie]

Well, as a decimal (where 0 is flat and 1 is vertical) or percentage e.g. 0.1, its 19.7 / (0.07 x number of feet in a mile);

To express as a percentage, simply multiply by 100 e.g. 0.1 x 100% = 10%. If a fraction is preferred e.g. 1 in 10, either divide the decimal gradient into 1 or percentage gradient into 100 to convert.

Sorry, I don't recall no. of feet in a mile

Then, when you've done all that... go outside & look at the road, rub your chin (essential), & think "now, does that look steep or not"

Stuart.

Thanks Coops

 

[JohnInStockie]

Is this right?

This is the Sanoodi link to one of the worser hills. Sanoodi says its pretty tame, I dont think sooooo

EDIT : sanoodi says it rises only 20 feet, which I have just observed is impossible given I look down on my house from the top of it, Id say it must be 50' from loking at it.

Still it will probably work overall over my whole trip, here goes...

 

[flecc]

That's the same trouble that I had John, local short hills recording all wrong.
.

 

[Sector]

3D Geometry

We might have to put Sanoodi down as a brave experiment in 3D geometry, but rather unreliable at present.

 

[flecc]

Still useful though Sector, over longer distances the graphs etc are good, it's just in very short sections that the problems appear. Just the way their software works from contours I think, and quite probably unavoidable.

This could be why Google didn't include a feature like this, since they don't usually miss a trick.
.

 

[ITSPETEINIT]

Not quite what I meant.

Pete

It seems to be OK to go off-road on Sanoodi. In fact the short route I gave previously is a cycle track, and doesn't show on a road map.

Pete/Sector

What I meant was "One must be careful not to place the marker 'Off the road'", when marking a road, otherwise you will measure the height at 'that point'. As in Mountain Roads, a few feet sideways could mean several hundred feet vertically.

Logically: one could measure the grade of a non-road, non-path terrain purely for the pleasure of walking it. Now who would want to do that?
Peter

 

[Ian]

I think part of the problem is that the sample points on the contours are quite a distance apart and between those points the contour doesn't necessarily follow the true lie of the land, likewise in a vertical direction the software will have to guess the profile between contour lines. I have a Garmin GPS that can calculate a gradient profile from topographic data on a memory card and the results are similar to Sanoodi. However if the track is travelled the GPS will acquire a more accurate profile from GPS data plus data from its inbuilt barometric altimeter which over short distances can vary quite considerably from the map generated profile. Over longer distances the errors do become averaged out.

Amazing that every road, every town, every hill and numerous points of interest in England fits onto a card smaller than a postage stamp though.

Welcome to the forum Sector, nice to see another member from Leics.

 

[Sector]

Yes I see what you mean now Pete. We are not troubled much by crowded contour lines in Leicestershire. but I've tried a Sanoodi route up Snowden, and the placing of the dots there is critical.

Sanoodi

Note that Sanoodi thinks the height of Snowden is 256 ft less than is normally accepted, but then my marker may not be exactly on the right spot.

Ian, I'm envious of the GPS. Yes I'm also amazed at these new devices. I have a TomTom satnav, which just seems to be a little Linux computer with a database of roads information. It boots from flash memory, runs in RAM, and avoids so many of those arguments with the navigator. Now we both just shout at Jane instead.

 

[andrewelectricbike1]

If you are interested in gradients there is a website called Sanoodi that will tell you how far you climbed during a ride. You need to register, but its free. You enter your route as a series of dots on the map, and it even seems to work off-road. Various information is then calculated for the route, including distance, difference in elevation between start and finish, and total climbed.

The idea is that you leave the route visible to other users of the site, but that is not essential. Most of my rides hardly qualify to be recorded for posterity, eg to work and back.

Have fun.

Sanoodi seems pretty good for profiling routes. Here is my daily commute:

 

[Sector]

Quite a climb!

Andrew,
364 ft in less than 5 miles seems pretty heavy going to me.

How does the Giant SuedE cope? How much effort does it require from you and how useful is the eleictic assist?

 

[andrewelectricbike1]

Andrew,
364 ft in less than 5 miles seems pretty heavy going to me.

How does the Giant SuedE cope? How much effort does it require from you and how useful is the eleictic assist?

The return journey back is freewheeling almost two miles down cycle tracks.
The suedeE fares well and still has enough in the battery at the end! When new it used to get me there and back too. I have to say these days the throttle is on most of the journey up to work.

Andrew

 

[flecc]

I've got the hang of getting the best out of Sanoodi now.

Here's my 7 mile hill climb test route, gentle climb of 515' in 6 miles outward bound and steep climb of 469' in 1 mile on return trip.

hill-climb-test-route

And here's the steepest bit of test climb that I have, the steepest 200 foot section at the start of of Hesiers Hill, 1 in 3.97, just over 25%. Both the Q bike and T bike can climb it ok from standing start at the foot.

Hesiers Hill

I've got a steeper short section on White Lane, but Sanoodi exaggerates it at 1 in 2.4, though I think it's more like the mid 1 in 3's. Only the Q bike can handle it, the Twist and T bike no chance.
.

 

[Sector]

Well packed contours

Flecc,

The contours are certainly well packed together on your routes!

It looks as though you are choosing points where the contour lines cross the road for your start and finish, to get gradients. Is that the the way to get better accuracy?

Sector

 

[flecc]

Yes, I've got some vicious hills round here, hence my emphasis on hill climb ability, since I need it all the time.

That placing of start and finish points wasn't deliberate and I don't know if it's best. All I was doing with the White Lane climb was picking out the steepest bit, partly from knowing it was at that step in the tree line and partly by trial and error. It could be that Sanoodi introduces an error if the points are on the contours, certainly it's exaggerating that very steep bit.

I'll have another play with it tomorrow to try to get better accuracy on that section, but it does seem to be better for accuracy if there's some length to a route.
.

 

[JohnInStockie]

Here's my daily commute...



It explains why I burn 150-200 cals on the way in, and 350-500 cals on the way home.