2012 GTs climbs comparation

[Eshnar]

Interesting read, as always
http://plataformarecorridosciclistas.org/2012/01/22/comparativa-de-los-puertos-de-giro-tour-y-vuelta-2012/

 

[jens_attacks]

Interesting read, as always
http://plataformarecorridosciclistas.org/2012/01/22/comparativa-de-los-puertos-de-giro-tour-y-vuelta-2012/

interesting yes but we have the "spanish flat" in ecuation which probably means vuelta has more climbing meters even than the giro.

 

[Eshnar]

interesting yes but we have the "spanish flat" in ecuation which probably means vuelta has more climbing meters even than the giro.

The data refers only to the 15 hardest climbs, so false flats or so are not taken into account.
And it's not like Italy is pan flat btw...

 

[gregrowlerson]

Giro clearly has the toughest climbs this year, and Giau and Alpe Pampeago could be ranked higher on the list. Giro has 5 climbs in excess of 9%, Vuelta has 1, while TDF's highest is 8.99%. Giro has 4 stages which are absolute beasts. The TDF only has one stage to compare at all and that's the stage to La Toussierre.

 

[Bavarianrider]

So objective data prooves that the Tour has actually the most climbing kilometres. Quiet a blow to all the ahters.

 

[Kvinto]

the Tour route is pretty good in terms of climbing, but unfortunately looking at it people take notice only of tt kms and amount of mtfs

 

[Ferminal]

the Tour route is pretty good in terms of climbing, but unfortunately looking at it people take notice only of tt kms and amount of mtfs

Yes, it's an interesting point that the Tour is only around 15% behind the Giro in terms of total (I mean top15) climbing difficulty, yet there are 2-3 stages of the Giro which are harder than the most difficult Tour stage. Says a lot about the poor stage design of the Tour.

 

[Kvinto]

Yes, it's an interesting point that the Tour is only around 15% behind the Giro in terms of total (I mean top15) climbing difficulty, yet there are 2-3 stages of the Giro which are harder than the most difficult Tour stage. Says a lot about the poor stage design of the Tour.

The harder not necessarily means better. Give the Tour one super hard stage and put it at the end of third week and you will get all other stages ruined (it's similar with a tt on the stage 20).

 

[Magnus]

I wonder what data they used to calculate these coefficients.

 

[Eshnar]

I wonder what data they used to calculate these coefficients.

If you understand spanish, this link explains the method they use.

 

[Magnus]

If you understand spanish, this link explains the method they use.

I found that. I don't understand Spanish (apart from "uno cerveza por favor"). As I read it they associate a difficulty with any gradient from 0,0% to 30,0% and then add up. It seems like a pretty good method (but is of course arbitrary in the sense that you have to assign difficulty to any gradient).

The thing is that then a climb of say 1 km length with 100 m vertical gain has difficulty 32 if it's a constant 10% climb.

However if it's 500 m of 0% and 500 m of 20% it has difficulty 1*½+157*½=78.75 (1 being the 0% difficulty, 157 being the 20% dificulty).

Or taking it to extremes it would have difficulty 1*(2/3) + 382*(1/3)= 127.5 if it was flat for some part and then gained the 100 m vertical by a 30% ramp.

So it really makes a difference what data you have to describe the climb.

 

[Eshnar]

I found that. I don't understand Spanish (apart from "uno cerveza por favor"). As I read it they associate a difficulty with any gradient from 0,0% to 30,0% and then add up. It seems like a pretty good method (but is of course arbitrary in the sense that you have to assign difficulty to any gradient).

The thing is that then a climb of say 1 km length with 100 m vertical gain has difficulty 32 if it's a constant 10% climb.

However if it's 500 m of 0% and 500 m of 20% it has difficulty 1*½+157*½=78.75 (1 being the 0% difficulty, 157 being the 20% dificulty).

Or taking it to extremes it would have difficulty 1*(2/3) + 382*(1/3)= 127.5 if it was flat for some part and then gained the 100 m vertical by a 30% ramp.

So it really makes a difference what data you have to describe the climb.

They add up kilometers as a whole, so short ramps does not affect the coefficient. Data do make difference anyway, but this holds true regardless to the method (unless you have complete knowledge of the climb, which is never the case)

 

[Magnus]

They add up kilometers as a whole, so short ramps does not affect the coefficient. Data do make difference anyway, but this holds true regardless to the method (unless you have complete knowledge of the climb, which is never the case)

Ok, then.
It just seems that different profiles vary greatly in style. TdF profile for instance are always divided into 1 km intervals whereas for instance Giro profiles seems to be divided into intervals that have roughly constant gradients.

Some difficulty rankings (such as salite/climbbybike) only use the height gain, length and altitude and as such the "complete knowledge" of the climb is just three numbers.

 

[Eshnar]

Ok, then.
It just seems that different profiles vary greatly in style. TdF profile for instance are always divided into 1 km intervals whereas for instance Giro profiles seems to be divided into intervals that have roughly constant gradients.

Some difficulty rankings (such as salite/climbbybike) only use the height gain, length and altitude and as such the "complete knowledge" of the climb is just three numbers.

From every profile you can always calculate average gradients over each kilometer and then use their method.
As for the rankings that use those three numbers, I find them pretty simplistic, since they don't take into account the variation of the gradient along the climb. For example, a 10kms long climb at 10% average (and costant) gradient is way easier than a climb with 5 kms at 5% and 5 kms at 15%. But in both cases those three numbers are the same.

 

[Magnus]

From every profile you can always calculate average gradients over each kilometer and then use their method.
As for the rankings that use those three numbers, I find them pretty simplistic, since they don't take into account the variation of the gradient along the climb. For example, a 10kms long climb at 10% average (and costant) gradient is way easier than a climb with 5 kms at 5% and 5 kms at 15%. But in both cases those three numbers are the same.

I'm not a fan of climbbybike's ratings my self. For instance it has the property that it rates parts of some climbs harder then the climb itself. This is the case for Ventoux and Stelvio for instance that has a steeper last part compared to the first part.

I've always liked altigraph's method that simply look at the time a certain rider will use to climb a climb at a certain power output. This method accounts for individual differences between heavier and lighter riders. But it does tend to rate long but shallow climbs to be hard.

I think Altimetrias method puts to much emphasis on gradient compared to length (rating 6% to 10 and 8% to 19) but off course that is very subjective (that's the nice thing about the altigraph method. It accounts for the subjectivity).

 

[Eshnar]

I'm not a fan of climbbybike's ratings my self. For instance it has the property that it rates parts of some climbs harder then the climb itself. This is the case for Ventoux and Stelvio for instance that has a steeper last part compared to the first part.

I've always liked altigraph's method that simply look at the time a certain rider will use to climb a climb at a certain power output. This method accounts for individual differences between heavier and lighter riders. But it does tend to rate long but shallow climbs to be hard.

I think Altimetrias method puts to much emphasis on gradient compared to length (rating 6% to 10 and 8% to 19) but off course that is very subjective (that's the nice thing about the altigraph method. It accounts for the subjectivity).

It is true about altigraph, but the climbing time doesn't reflect difficulty at all.
I guess difficulty is something intrinsecally subjective anyway (perhaps the profile itself is not sufficient to know the real difficulty of a climb, it might also depend on the surface (sterrato should be harder than tarmac for example), or other parameters (Mt. Etna could be regarded to as harder because of the air full of ash etc.)

 

[Parrulo]

"una cerveza por favor"

fixed it for you

also you may want to know 2eres muy guapa, me encantas" and "tienes condones?"

as for the site, as always an interesting read

 

[Magnus]

fixed it for you

Guess that just goes to show my poor Spanish-skills

also you may want to know 2eres muy guapa, me encantas" and "tienes condones?"

Might come in handy

 

[Potomac]

I can't believe anybody went to the trouble of making all kinds of different colored tables and did NOT make route profiles.

What could have been a GREAT product that spoke across all languages at a glance ends up looking tedious.

 

[Viskovitz]

I can't believe anybody went to the trouble of making all kinds of different colored tables and did NOT make route profiles.

What could have been a GREAT product that spoke across all languages at a glance ends up looking tedious.

¿¿?? You have all the route profiles in the pages of the Giro, Tour and Vuelta.

 

[Kwibus]

¿¿?? You have all the route profiles in the pages of the Giro, Tour and Vuelta.

Point is that this info is fun, but not all that useful.

A GT can have the most climbing kilometres by starting every stage with 2 1st cat. climbs and then 130km flat. Sure a lot of climbing, but it won't make an impact on the race.

 

[roundabout]

I see that it has already been mentioned in the comments on the PRC page, but I should repeat it here. Port de Lers is missing from the TdF climbs list so the gap on paper between the Giro and the Tour narrows down somewhat.

 

[Timmy-loves-Rabo]

So objective data prooves that the Tour has actually the most climbing kilometres. Quiet a blow to all the ahters.

Well you have to consider more then just the amount of climbing, I am not a huge fan of the stage designs. And yes I like others dislike the amount of tts as in all liklihood it will be a more defining factor in the overall (not in t.martin's case, he might make top 100 tho)

also the gradient avg is still significant, even more when you consider some of the places of the difficult climbs for each race.

 

[will10]

So objective data prooves that the Tour has actually the most climbing kilometres. Quiet a blow to all the ahters.

You can't just look at climbing kilometres alone though, it's where the climbs are relative to each other, how far from the finish etc. Look at this stage from a few years ago:

Now in terms of the number of climbing kilometres it's an awesome stage, look at all those big climbs. But in terms of what those climbs add to the race? Not a jot, a completely pointless stage.

 

[roundabout]

There's this brilliant bit of stage design next year featuring 2 of the 15 toughest climbs of the 2012 edition

Not to mention 2 rather light stages billed as the opportunity to attack where one only has a cat 2 climb before the big one (stage to Bellegarde) and a slightly better stage to Foix which is still on the lighter side with just Portel and Lers before