I am not sure how people know the grade of a hill either, other than just by eyeballing it.
I would just eyeball it if it weren't right in front of my house. In fact the hill up to my house is the kind that I have generally avoided on bike rides. I've never ridden a bicycle up Moser or Centennial here in the East Bay hills. Since it is right here, what I do is take out my 4 foot level and a ruler. Just measure how high you have to elevate one end to make it level. rise over run. On Jul 16, 5:56 pm, "David T." <davidtren...@yahoo.ca> wrote: > I just looked up something that I read in Frank Berto’s book: > > “With a cyclist’s entire weight on the pedal, the maximum rideable > gear in inches is seven times the slope denominator. Thus, a 1-in-10 > incline requires a 70-inch gear.” > > (In other words, on a 10 % slope, with all your weight on the pedal, > and a 70-inch gear you would just be stationary. But in reality, if > you pulled up on the handlebars, you could make a little progress. ) > > If I work things out correctly, a 15 % grade would be 1-in-6.67. Using > the formula above, this would give a maximum usable gear of 7 X 6.67 = > 46.7 gear inches. > > ( That’s the maximum usable gear, not that it would be a fun ride. ) > > I am not sure how people know the grade of a hill either, other than > just by eyeballing it. > > But I can say, in my experience, riding a single-speed bike will > gradually make you a better climber, so that after maybe six months or > a year, you can go up hills quicker and easier than you would have > done previously in a lower gear. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bu...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch?hl=en.
