Silly Commuter Elevations

meanredspider

Who has the lumpiest ride?

On my ride home, this formula seemed to make some sense (obviously oxygen starvation as I climbed yet another steep hill)

Total Round Trip Miles x Total Climb on the round trip

So, for me, this looks like

30.5 miles x 2000ft = 61,000ft.miles

If your ride is totally flat the elevation bit is 0ft so you score 0ft.miles

Make sense?

whyamihere

32.6 miles, 1644 feet.

Roughly 53600 ft.miles.

Eau Rouge

"Miles" are things cars do, bikes do kilometres, and climb in meters.

My massoof commute is a 13.9km round trip with 123m climbing. That works out as 1709.7m.km

8.64 miles X 403.5ft = 3486.25 ft.miles

rolf_f

We did this last year on SCS - though then it was as a ratio; total overall climb divided by number of miles ridden. Gives the number of feet per mile you climb. Also had overall height gained (I'm on around 150,000 feet or so for the year). Wasn't really that interesting as the climb ratio is fairly unchanging if most of your miles are commited to a commute anyway.

My route varies but tonight my route home was 36.6 miles and 2927 feet. So that's 107128 ft miles.

Eau Rouge - Miles are things people from Britain do; the form of transport makes no difference at all. Please translate your post into the correct units; we all know you are just trying to hide the flatness of your route

meanredspider

Rolf F wrote:

We did this last year on SCS - though then it was as a ratio; total overall climb divided by number of miles ridden. Gives the number of feet per mile you climb. :

Yes - thought about that - but you could have a short sharp climb 1/2 mile up a hill to work and have the most impressive figure. Or a ride 10 times as long with 10 times the climb and end up with the same number. This formula "rewards" the distance covered.

I'm at 80,000ft for the year but only started commuting by bike in Feb

jangle

My total round trip is 50 miles and 130,000 ft, which is pretty much to the edge of space. :shock:

amnezia

Maths fail!

Example:

One person has a 1 mile commute with 1 mile of elevation.

Another person has a 10 mile commute with 1 mile of elevation.

So according to your calculation the person who travels 10 miles has a hillier commute? No..

rolf_f

amnezia wrote:

Maths fail!

Example:

One person has a 1 mile commute with 1 mile of elevation.

Another person has a 10 mile commute with 1 mile of elevation.

So according to your calculation the person who travels 10 miles has a hillier commute? No..

It's also flawed by mixed units!

And it doesn't quite work multiplying the numbers - in the case of my trip yesterday, my number was 107128 based on 36 miles and 2927 feet. The same 107128 is achieved with a 25 mile ride covering 4285 feet which I'd say is much the harder ride.

Meanredspider - indeed, dividing the two could give the same number for a short, sharp route as a much longer, much climbier route but since the climb ratio was attached to the SCS table, you could see the total horizontal mileage people were achieving to reach that ratio.

It was boring on SCS because the numbers didn't change but I liked it as it highlighted how much harder us non-Londoners were! There's a good 20 people on SCS who have covered more horizontal mileage than me but I'll be in the top 3 vertically! (Currently on 160,000 feet!)

always_tyred

25 miles around, 550m elevation.

I make that 36.4 pound acre feet per gallon.

meanredspider

Rolf F wrote:

amnezia wrote:

Maths fail!

Example:

One person has a 1 mile commute with 1 mile of elevation.

Another person has a 10 mile commute with 1 mile of elevation.

So according to your calculation the person who travels 10 miles has a hillier commute? No..

It's also flawed by mixed units!

And it doesn't quite work multiplying the numbers

Guys - firstly there's absolutely nothing wrong with mixing units - in any case, the ratio of results is exactly the same - I just wanted to
a. make it easy (the common units for these measurements is miles & feet)
b. get impressively big numbers - they look better.

Secondly, I'm not proposing this for the Nobel Physics Prize - it's just meant to be indicative &, dare I say it, a bit of fun!

Amnezia - I wanted to get some sense of distance covered as a measure of "difficulty" - it isn't perfect, granted, but (from a pure "work" perspective) the 10 mile route is harder than the 1 mile route so it does meet my intent.

rolf_f

Calm down dear, it's only an internet discussion! I don't think anyone is anticipating your nomination for any Nobel prizes, physics or otherwise. As far as I'm concerned, I'm just trying to have fun with an interesting idea.

As I said though, it still doesn't really work well for overall effort as it gives undue weight to horizontal mileage. A bit arbitrary but if you subtracted a constant from the climb before multiplying it the weighting might be better - eg, for example, if you ride 30 miles, a climb of 1000 feet spread over the distance is effectively no real climbing effort at all so should still get a very low score. On my numbers (25 miles, 4285 feet and 36 miles, 2927 feet) instead of getting 107,000 both times you get 82125 and 69372 which better represents relative effort.

Of course, it might go pear shaped for shorter routes so maybe you'd have to divide by mileage as well.......

meanredspider

Rolf F wrote:

Calm down dear, it's only an internet discussion! I don't think anyone is anticipating your nomination for any Nobel prizes, physics or otherwise. As far as I'm concerned, I'm just trying to have fun with an interesting idea.

Sorry - what I wrote was firmly tongue-in-cheek and in good humour but doesn't re-read like that....

Yes - I was trying to keep it fairly simple (have read the thread where people are struggling to divide their weight by the weight of their bike). If we were really to do this justice, weight and speed would need to be included too - but life's far too short. It's a shame that the calorie functions on bike computers are so crap else that would be good.

Pross

Rolf, where do you live to get stats like that? I've done green travel surveys for work where people at a proposed factory site said they wouldn't cycle as it was too hilly - it was about 2 miles and 200 feet from the original site!

Agent57

Eau Rouge wrote:

bikes do kilometres

Meh, yours might do. Mine do miles.

Eau Rouge

Bah, you're all wrong. Kilometers are so much more fun. Speeds are higher numbers, distances are higher numbers, it's great.

Agent57

amnezia wrote:

Maths fail!

Grammar failure! (Internet meme win.)

rolf_f

Pross wrote:

Rolf, where do you live to get stats like that? I've done green travel surveys for work where people at a proposed factory site said they wouldn't cycle as it was too hilly - it was about 2 miles and 200 feet from the original site!

I live in Leeds. Doesn't take long to whack up high climbs if you head North out of Leeds and down into Wharfedale. Generally, the terrain usually generates about 80 feet of climbing per mile if you ride across the grain of the topography - maybe 70 if you go with it. 2 miles and 200 feet is steeper but of course, if your total climb is only 200 feet, the distance horizontal distance needs to be much shorter for it to really hurt.

As soon as I leave the house, I climb 140 feet in the first 0.4 miles (or 43 metres in 814 metres for Eau which sounds much less painful!); you never get used to that! (see the right hand end of my sig profile).

Note - the 4000 feet in 25 miles was hypothetical!

Eau Rouge

Rolf F wrote:

(or 43 metres in 814 metres for Eau ...)

Appreciate that.

rjsterry

Try working in the construction industry. Most thing are measured in millimetres, but are still based on imperial sizes and standards. After a while you get quite good at converting in your head and switching units mid sentence: " ...we'll screw a bit of 18mm ply to the 2"x4"..."

I've also had my computer set in km for a couple of years now, but still think in miles, so have to convert the speeds in my head as I ride. Surprising I haven't ridden into something, really.

meanredspider

Had a different thought tonight - have we had a thread about the windiest (most mass movement of air rather than twistiest) commutes? Apart from when it was -9C in Feb, it's never still up here - headwind all the way home (my net uphill route).

Maybe there's a weather site that gives average windspeed for various locations...?

meanredspider

Rolf F wrote:

As soon as I leave the house, I climb 140 feet in the first 0.4 miles

I have something very similar - it's a brutal start to the day but makes a pleasant end to the ride home. It was so windy today that I only managed 33mph on the way down though