Diablo Ride - Sat. Dec. 8

[jobob]

I thought 11% seemed like a bit much as well. That's Sierra Road/Welch Creek territory.

With my CicloSport computer I can download the % gradient over very short intervals of a climb.

So, I pulled up the data from one of the times I climbed the entire mountain up the north side, and dumped the data into this spredsheet.

I color-coded the gradient values so that < 6 % is white, 6% to 8% is yellow, > 8% to 10% is orange and > 10% is red. Apart from the last bit to the summit, there are not very many stretches over 10%. The brief steep sections are mainly switchbacks, and the gradient there depends in part on what line you take going around.

My numbers worked out to about 6% average gradient from the North Gate to the Junction, and 7% average gradient from the Junction to the summit.