My childhood hill...19.9% Grade

[Mr. Bloom]

I guess I know why, in my 40's, I took to cycling like a natural.

I just mapped my street on Red Mountain in Birmingham Alabama. .13 miles rising 135 feet - 19.9% Grade.:eek::eek: We used to "criss cross" to climb it. We used to skate board down it as well (and that explains some of my elbow scars)

I guess now I really understand why my car only got 8 mpg as well.

As some have doubted the existence of paved steep grades in the past, zip code 35222 - 12th Ave South rising from 52nd Street to Clairmont Avenue

[Possegal]

How exactly did you map this, by riding it? Just curious. I can't wait to take my Garmin home and ride - I'm from Pittsburgh and like you, as a kid I used to ride up some massive hills, usually with the criss cross method. Rode down the hills on darn near anything with wheels, including sitting on a rollerskate - clearly my butt was smaller back then, as now I'd need a few skates under it. :)

[Susan126]

I was born and raised in Pittsburgh too (my parents still live in Fox Chapel) but I remember learning to ride a bike. My friend said she would teach me. I got on her bike at the top of a big big long hill. She pushed me off and down I went! I was only 9 and I loved it until it was time to turn at the bottom of the hill. I paniced and instead of turning left I kept on going straight. My friend was yelling hit the brakes! What brakes? Where are the brakes? Old school bike with the pedal brake. Anyway, I hit a 2 foot high cement wall and over I went bike and all about 8 feet! Thank goodness for 9 year old bones! Except for a few scatches I was fine. My friend reached me and asked me if I was okay and I said I'm fine I want to do it again! That hill was 10% grade!

Kids! Today at 54 I doubt I would do something like that if I did not know how to ride!

[Mr. Bloom]

How ironic, Birmingham is the Pittsburgh of the South. But all the steel mills were on the relatively flat west side of town.

I used mapmyride to quench my initial curiousity. Silver and I said that we would try to ride it next time we pass through on the way to the beach!

[uforgot]

How did you calculate the grade? Did the mapping site do it? I'm impressed if you did it! I used the Pythagorean Theorem and got 20.06%. If you had made a mistake and used the .13 miles as the horizontal distance instead of the hypotenuse, you would have been off a bit and calculated it at around 19.66%. I can't wait for someone in my geometry class to say "yeah, and who else will ever use this besides you?" I'll say "Why Mr. Silver used it in November!":D

By the way, that's an impressive hill!

[Mr. Bloom]

Honestly, I relied on the mapmyride distance and I don't know if that was horizontal or not...but it's a short distance. I also relied on their ascent calculation. Personally I would have guessed it was higher...

My calculation was 135 feet of ascent divided by .13 mile.

After a horzontal run, the final climb is about a 40 foot climb over 100 feet. This is one of those hills that you couldn't see over as you crested it in a car (and in 1972, our friends car couldn't crest it without a running start and all the kids leaning forward)