Motion Based Question

[kfergos]

Geologically a hill is (usually) anything less than 1,000 from base to and a mountain is anything more than 1,000 feet from base to top. The problem is perception -- short, steep, climbs can be killer compared to those long, long inclines.

I like my Garmin Edge 605 -- it says I can ride up a 45% grade! For those of us sans barometric measurement devices, what is the most reliable way to find the elevation profile of a route? Is mapmyride pretty accurate?

[SadieKate]

Oh, your elevation profile should be fine without a barometic altimeter. What goes astray is the cumulative climb totals as in "I climbed 3,212 ft in 100 miles." A GPS should give you a decent recording that the base of the hill was at X feet and the top was at x feet of elevation. But if the road has any undulations on the way up (which just about all do), the total climbing will be off.

Make sense?

[OakLeaf]

And another Doh! from my commute on Thursday.

I didn't reset the computer between legs. In the hour and a half I was at the gym, apparently the barometric pressure must've dropped a bit. So my whole return trip was 200 feet "higher" than the outbound leg.

Because it was all one trip, none of the correction algorithms (TC, ST or MB autocorrect) was "smart" enough to correct the elevation data throughout the trip. When I apply MB Gravity, that one is that smart - so my elevation profile is a nice mirror image as it should be for an out-and-back - but it gives me a total elevation gain that's like 40% greater than the autocorrect alone. Hmph.