Easiest way find percentage of a hill?

[Mrke]

Reading the forum posts, I see many times someone stating 'it easily climbed the 12%' or such.

A forum search returned a post from 2007 mentioning a spirit level and measuring tape etc; well hopefully those days are now gone!

So what's the usual and easiest way to measure a hill to ascertain the percentage of the gradiant? Is it an app, cycle computer or something else?

 

[trex]

one simple way is to use the Woosh Predictor. You enter the postcode of somewhere near the hill, press return, the map zooms to that postcode.
Ajust the zoom level, then click on somewhere on or after the hill. The tool will display the gradient profile at the bottom of the page with some statistics like length, steepest gradient etc, You can move the mouse over the gradient map, the tool will display the gradient at that point.

 

[Mrke]

I'll have a look, thanks trex

 

[Deleted member 4366]

There's a phone ap too, but it has a couple of limitations: You need to mount your phone in the right orientation; and you need to calibrate it first. Obviously it needs the angle-of-dangle sensor in it to work.
Its called Clinometer - surprise, surprise!

I've found the Google maps etc inaccurate. You get a different value depending how far zoomed in you are - by up to 50% difference, so you it for guidance only.

 

[jackhandy]

Clinometer is rather good _ I used it to check-out gradients of a few hills in & around the Eden Project prior to last year's ebike event.
Got some funny looks when I kept hopping off the bike & carefully placing my phone on the road

 

[flecc]

A forum search returned a post from 2007 mentioning a spirit level and measuring tape etc; well hopefully those days are now gone!

No they aren't gone. All the other consumer methods I've come across all too easily fail any accuracy tests, I just tried the Woosh one on a correctly measured hill and found it reading 3.3 low, seriously wrong on an actual 14%. I then tried three other local hills of various gradients and all read 10.7%!

So if you want consistently correct results, it really is the rule and spirit level method described, and it's cheap.
.

 

[SRS]

Get your iPhone with a spirit level app. This will give you 0 to 90 degrees. Exactly how an angle should be measured.

The guy who came up with the % system must have been in the pub at the time. He was probably the same guy that decided that the tax year should start part way through and not at the beginning of the year.

Beyond all sensible reason to any normal person.

 

[EddiePJ]

This one that I have just come across looks interesting. http://bikehike.co.uk/index.php

 

[flecc]

Get your iPhone with a spirit level app. This will give you 0 to 90 degrees. Exactly how an angle should be measured.

That's far too coarse. The range of hills we climb, especially on roads, cover very few degrees at the lower end of the scale.

There's a real difference in climbing a 5% and a 7 or 8% which can't be adequately expressed on a degree scale.

That's why we have percentages and the related 1 in X method.
.

 

[SRS]

That's far too coarse. The range of hills we climb, especially on roads, cover very few degrees at the lower end of the scale.

There's a real difference in climbing a 5% and a 7 or 8% which can't be adequately expressed on a degree scale.

That's why we have percentages and the related 1 in X method.
.

Ask anyone you like next time you are in the pub to draw a 8% slope.
I'll bet it will look nothing like it should do.

Try again and ask for a 20 degree slope.

Half the population have no idea how steep a 5% hill is.

 

[oigoi]

So is it the same as if you converted it like a fraction to a decimal i.e. a 1 in 4 would be 25%?

 

[flecc]

So is it the same as if you converted it like a fraction to a decimal i.e. a 1 in 4 would be 25%?

Yes, direct conversion.
.

 

[flecc]

Ask anyone you like next time you are in the pub to draw a 8% slope.
I'll bet it will look nothing like it should do.

Try again and ask for a 20 degree slope.

Half the population have no idea how steep a 5% hill is.

You are completely missing the point, no-one routinely climbs a 20 degree slope.

The whole range of what we climb covers very few degrees, making degrees as a measure useless. Tell me, how many degrees are 6% and 8%, typical of the slopes we need to know?

Whether someone can draw a slope is irrelevant. If you don't like percentages but want to do art work, use the 1 in X method which is effectively the same thing but can be drawn easily.
.

 

[SRS]

I understand that you are saying degrees are far too coarse and most hills would be within a few degrees. In other words, lack of resolution. Then 5.1, 5.2 etc makes sense to me.

I am just saying, that I think the current % system means little to a lot of people.

 

[flecc]

True, but it at least is a means of useful comparison. I think using decimal points with degrees makes for even more confusion, since degrees are normally divided by minutes and seconds, both units of 60.

Once someone knows that a percentage is instantly convertible to a 1 in X figure by dividing into 100, the mist clears. 12%? Twelve divided into 100 is 8, so 1 in 8 which is readily pictured.

The logic of percentages is that it makes the expression of a slope a single figure.
.

 

[Geebee]

How accurate is Strava? its very convenient for more commonly cycled roads.

 

[Deleted member 4366]

You can have degrees or percentage with the Clinometer ap.

 

[SRS]

True, but it at least is a means of useful comparison. I think using decimal points with degrees makes for even more confusion, since degrees are normally divided by minutes and seconds, both units of 60.

Once someone knows that a percentage is instantly convertible to a 1 in X figure by dividing into 100, the mist clears. 12%? Twelve divided into 100 is 8, so 1 in 8 which is readily pictured.

The logic of percentages is that it makes the expression of a slope a single figure.
.

Degrees, minutes and seconds are more commonly used for navigational purposes.

I think I'll stick to the old fashioned cyclist marking.

E - easy
H - hard
FH - flippin hard

 

[oigoi]

Apparently our use of numbers based around 60 for time and navigation comes from the times of the babylonian empire, when 60 was used because it is easily divided by a lot of other numbers

 

[JohnCade]

True, but it at least is a means of useful comparison. I think using decimal points with degrees makes for even more confusion, since degrees are normally divided by minutes and seconds, both units of 60.

Once someone knows that a percentage is instantly convertible to a 1 in X figure by dividing into 100, the mist clears. 12%? Twelve divided into 100 is 8, so 1 in 8 which is readily pictured.

The logic of percentages is that it makes the expression of a slope a single figure.
.

I don't know why we had to change from the old fashioned 1 in 10, 1 in 8 method to percentages anyway. When you saw a sign with Steep Hill 1 in 6 it meant a lot more to most people than the equivalent 16.5% rounded off.