How to measure how much you've climbed?

jame58rown

This may be a stupid question, but how does one measure the amount of climbing they've done on a particular route? I.e. 20 mile route with 1000ft of climbing? I read alot about routes telling you how much climbings involved, so would like to know how it's done.

Is it a feature on certain cycling computers or can google maps measure it?

Thanks in advance.

Bradders87

http://bikeroutetoaster.com/
http://ridewithgps.com/
Cyclemeter iPhone app

Take your pick

Bobbinogs

There are quite a few good online tools out there. I use mapmyride.com which I find pretty good (not worth buying the upgraded options though, IMO). Careful with the % though, it is all an average so the more you map, the more averaging done. The best feature is that you can plot your route and match it to your training needs, say a 50Mile ride with 500Metres of climbing one week followed by similar mileage and more climbing the following week. You can also eyeball the route to check for tricky junctions, etc., if you are bored.

Others can namedrop their favourites, like bikely.com, but I don't think there is one clear winner.

Some cycle computers will also work out the ascent/descent but I have no experience of them (I use the simple Cateye Wireless Strada).

inseine

You get all that kinda stuff on a Garmin. Expensive if that's all you want it for.

schweiz

The resolution of height data on Google which is used for many of the on-line mapping programmes is a good guide but IME not always so accurate due to the way the digital height model uses 'tiles' to cover an area of the same height. I'm sure they use varying tile sizes for steep and flat terrain but I've seen enough anomolies for me to treat it with caution.

Then there are cycle computers with barometric altimeters built in (e.g. Sigma ROX 8.0 or 9.0). You set the set the altitude of your start point to calibrate the unit and it calculates height gain and loss from that point. If a weather front moves across during the day then your data will be incorrect due to the pressure changes not caused by altitude difference. The best thing is to re-callibrate at known height points through the day.

Then there are cycle computers that measure GPS altitude such as the Garmin Edge 205 and 605. These are limited to the resolution of the GPS WGS84 model of the earth which again is not the most accurate in some places on the globe.

Then there are cycle computers with GPS and Barometric Altimeters (e.g. Garmin Edge 305, 705, 500, 800) which will give the most accurate figures compared to the previous two options but still not 100% accurate as it's a hybrid.

The final method, which has been tried and tested for years, is to trace your route on an OS map and count the contour lines. However, it's time consuming, accuracy is lost on bumpy routes due to the resolution of the contours (typically 10 m) so within a contour your actual height could be 1m or 9m out and 1:25000 paper maps are 8 quid each from OS (although libraries usually have a decent selection)

[edit] I don't have one so forgot about new gen phones with GPS and an app. I assume these phones don't have baro altimeters so are effectively like the Garmin 205 and 605 with shorter battery life!

Anonymous

For posting about your rides on BikeRadar.com simply take a rough guess of the height climbed then multiply that estimate by a factor of 1.5.

The same principle applies to your average speed for any given ride.

softlad

http://www.bikehike.co.uk/mapview.php

vroomvroom

£2.99 cyclemeter app if you have an iphone

Peddle Up!

Sports Tracker (nuffink), if you have a Nokia smartphone.

http://www.sports-tracker.com/

Pross

NapoleonD wrote:

For posting about your rides on BikeRadar.com simply take a rough guess of the height climbed then multiply that estimate by a factor of 1.5.

The same principle applies to your average speed for any given ride.

Spot on. Obviously you also have to assume that if a road sign says 25% then the entire climb is 25% as well

I think the question has been answered, any of those free to use websites will give you a reasonably good idea of how much climbing you have done. Some have level data at closer intervals than others and I would say that from my experience of Ride With GPS and Map My Ride that the former seems to relate more closely to my own impressions (Map My Ride seems to miss some steep sections out of climbs but both give a very similar overall figure).

These all give close enough approximations for pretty much any user and mean you don't have to splash out on a computer/GPS system that may or may not be any more accurate. If you want certainty you will need to buy some total station surveying equipment and survey your route

Bar Shaker

The new Boardman computer gives vertical climb and cadence. Recommended.

a_n_t

NapoleonD wrote:

For posting about your rides on BikeRadar.com simply take a rough guess of the height climbed then multiply that estimate by a factor of 1.5.

The same principle applies to your average speed for any given ride.

Dunkeldog

I bought myself a Garmin Edge 500. Really enjoy analysing the ride - cadence, splits, altitude gained and lost, average speeds....the list goes on. It's really brought an extra dimension to my cycling.

briantrumpet

I map all my rides with Mapyx Quo: the program is free, and though you have to buy the 1:50,000 tiles, the'yre only 99p each, and each one covers about 20 miles square. The maps have very accurate altitude data from Ordnance Survey at high resolution, so you can be sure of the figures. Creating a route takes only a minute or two, and you can then see the profile, climbing, etc., and save any route you've done. Great program, IMHO.

PBo

Dunkeldog wrote:

I bought myself a Garmin Edge 500. Really enjoy analysing the ride - cadence, splits, altitude gained and lost, average speeds....the list goes on. It's really brought an extra dimension to my geeking.

fixed that for you....

Bobbinogs

PBo wrote:

Dunkeldog wrote:

I bought myself a Garmin Edge 500. Really enjoy analysing the ride - cadence, splits, altitude gained and lost, average speeds....the list goes on. It's really brought an extra dimension to my geeking.

fixed that for you....

EV!lution

That iphone app sucks, i get diffrent climb heightd every time i use it and i ride the same route,
when i mean diffrent i mean in 100's of meters diffrence

mattward1979

I use Endomondo for Android (Free. None of the silly paying for Apps Apple nonsense!) and it gives a pretty decent readout for your journey.

http://www.endomondo.com/workouts/2989435

There is an example.. The box at the bottom gives a altitude/speed graph for the journey, and the stats at the side tell you the lowest/highest points.

May not be accurate enough for your needs, but I love it

dmch2

mattward1979 wrote:

I use Endomondo for Android (Free. None of the silly paying for Apps Apple nonsense!) and it gives a pretty decent readout for your journey.

http://www.endomondo.com/workouts/2989435

There is an example.. The box at the bottom gives a altitude/speed graph for the journey, and the stats at the side tell you the lowest/highest points.

May not be accurate enough for your needs, but I love it

It's a shame it doesn't total up the climbs but it's very good for tracking routes etc.

fredmac

I am just back from a training ride, round one of my usual loops near Stranraer. My fairly old basic Sigma cycle comp says I did 18.1 miles.
Just out of interest I plotted my route on both "bikeroutetoaster" and "bikehike", using it well zoomed in to get it just right and they both came up with 20.5 miles. They also had the same amount of ascent/decent.
Does anyone have opinions/proof as to how accurate these maps are, do I need to bin the Sigma or can I trust it :?:

Anonymous

Have you got the tyre size dialled in correctly?

fredmac

Have you got the tyre size dialled in correctly?

As far as I know, but it's so old that I don't have the instructions anymore.
It's been set like this for years

rich164h

schweiz wrote:

The resolution of height data on Google which is used for many of the on-line mapping programmes is a good guide but IME not always so accurate due to the way the digital height model uses 'tiles' to cover an area of the same height. I'm sure they use varying tile sizes for steep and flat terrain but I've seen enough anomolies for me to treat it with caution.!

Not quite. Just like normal imagery the height model has a spatial resolution (i.e. pixels of a given size) and for each pixel there will be a given absolute accuracy (relative to mean sea level or some other datum) and relative accuracy (height of a pixel relative to an adjacent pixel). The accuracy of the webtool is limited therefore by the accuracy of the model that it links to. Free DEMs will be of the coarsest resolution horizontally, but not nessesarily less accurate. It's just that their value refers to the average of a larger area so may not be representative for the part of the sub-pixel that you are standing in. Unless you are using a very coarse DEM (e.g. 1km pixel) then youi'll probably find that any over or under estimates of your height along a route will average themselves out to give you a fairly accurate overall height climbed/descended (assuming that the DEM is accurate - which you'd need to find out).

schweiz wrote:

Then there are cycle computers with barometric altimeters built in (e.g. Sigma ROX 8.0 or 9.0). You set the set the altitude of your start point to calibrate the unit and it calculates height gain and loss from that point. If a weather front moves across during the day then your data will be incorrect due to the pressure changes not caused by altitude difference. The best thing is to re-callibrate at known height points through the day.!

Indeed. Infact this is how aircraft do it. The problem though is knowing what value to reset it to throughout the day. Aircraft use measurements from local airfields via radio contact but out on a bike I'm not sure how practical this really is (phone home to get the latest barometric measurement from a more robust weather station?). I'd say that you might see some deviation over the coarse of a whole day if there was some significant weather fronts passing over but otherwise any change is likely to be minor and frankly irrelivent.

schweiz wrote:

Then there are cycle computers that measure GPS altitude such as the Garmin Edge 205 and 605. These are limited to the resolution of the GPS WGS84 model of the earth which again is not the most accurate in some places on the globe.!

WGS84 is a mathematical ellipsoid and is therefore 100% accurate. It's defined by a set of equations and is one (of many) representations of the mean sea level around the world (which clearly isn't perfect at the local scale as it could/will be dramtically wrong). It essentially acts as a fixed baseline to which a seperate point measurement can be compared. In cycling we are usually only really interested in relative height changes that yield how much we have climbed/descended so even if this baseline doesn't represent true MSL for the UK, it doesn't matter as it's the relative change of a point above the datum that's important, not the datum itself (as long as the datum is consistent - which WGS84 is). Any Inaccuracy of GPS driven measurements are due to the measurement technique involved, not the reference ellipsoid/datum being used. For absolute height measurements of single points, one would probably use the WGS84 system for horizontal positioning and use a local high resolution geoid model (something that accurately measures gravity /sea level itself, rather than a mathematical approximation of sea level) as a reference for the heights.

schweiz wrote:

Then there are cycle computers with GPS and Barometric Altimeters (e.g. Garmin Edge 305, 705, 500, 800) which will give the most accurate figures compared to the previous two options but still not 100% accurate as it's a hybrid.!

True, but nothing is 100% accurate as the local geoid isn't known perfectly! It depends on how accurate you need it to be though and for most people the accuracies involved here would be fine. One improvement could be to fly a survey aircraft along the route with a LIDAR instrument in and utilise differential GPS to constrain the solution. This would be potentially be the most accurate method but also hugely costly. It's done for some sporting events though (eg. some F1 and WRC events - albeit with a ground based LIDAR usually).

schweiz wrote:

The final method, which has been tried and tested for years, is to trace your route on an OS map and count the contour lines. However, it's time consuming, accuracy is lost on bumpy routes due to the resolution of the contours (typically 10 m) so within a contour your actual height could be 1m or 9m out and 1:25000 paper maps are 8 quid each from OS (although libraries usually have a decent selection)!

Then again you'll end up over estimating sometimes and under estimating on others so it will balance itself out. This really comes down to what accuracy is acceptable again. For cycling it's probably good enough (albeit very time consuming) but don't think for one second that OS maps are 100% accurate, especially in more rural parts of the coutry. Most of them are derived from very old paper maps and very old stereo-aerial photgraphy. In most urban areas they have been brought up to date and corrected but the further you get from the SE of England and/or the further from a major urban area the less accurate they are. The most accurate height models of the UK are not produced by the OS, a fact born out by the fact that they don't supply height data across government. A commercial company does.

schweiz wrote:

[edit] I don't have one so forgot about new gen phones with GPS and an app. I assume these phones don't have baro altimeters so are effectively like the Garmin 205 and 605 with shorter battery life!

Yep, exactly the same as a Garmin etc. the limitation is in the GPS system. In a few years Gallileo should improve on this quite a lot but it still won't be "perfect".[/quote]