Paris Roubaix has 1,417m of elevation!

[bladerunner]

Just seen Niki Terpstra's Strava upload (http://www.strava.com/activities/130432764) of his Paris Roubaix ride and it involved 1,417 metres of elevation. In my opinion, that's a fair bit of climbing for a so called "flat" classic.

Does anyone know how much elevation there is for this year's Liege-Bastogne-Liege, Amstel Gold and Tour of Flanders?

 

[BigMac]

It is flat. Only once percentages go above 1%. All that gain is due to the distance Vs some false flat.

 

[Bavarianrider]

Strava is brutally exagerating altitude meters.

If you make routes there and compare it to the likes of bikeroutetoaster, tracks4bikers, ect. Strava always has way higher numbers

 

[janraaskalt]

It's the bouncing on the cobbles

 

[Afrank]

Just seen Niki Terpstra's Strava upload (http://www.strava.com/activities/130432764) of his Paris Roubaix ride and it involved 1,417 metres of elevation. In my opinion, that's a fair bit of climbing for a so called "flat" classic.

Does anyone know how much elevation there is for this year's Liege-Bastogne-Liege, Amstel Gold and Tour of Flanders?

Via Strava:
LBL-3,317 meters
AGR-2,741 meters
RVV-1,740 meters

 

[bladerunner]

Via Strava:
LBL-3,317 meters
AGR-2,741 meters
RVV-1,740 meters

Thanks Afrank.

 

[rghysens]

It's the bouncing on the cobbles

This.
There's a gap of about 2cm deep on average between two cobbles. And about 4 cobbles per meter. And about 51500m of cobbles in Paris-Roubaix.
That means a total elevation gain of 2*4*51500= 412000cm or 4120m elevation gain in paris-roubaix, comparable to the most difficult mountain stages in GT's. So Tom Boonen and Fabian Cancellara are among the best climbers ever.
Fact!

 

[Cookster15]

Does it depend what device you use? I use Strava on iPhone and seem to get more elevation than my mate who uses his Garmin computer? Maybe they are not all equally accurate. In that case you can only compare with your own results not other people and the OP results for PR are meaningless.

 

[del1962]

Does it depend what device you use? I use Strava on iPhone and seem to get more elevation than my mate who uses his Garmin computer? Maybe they are not all equally accurate. In that case you can only compare with your own results not other people and the OP results for PR are meaningless.

When I load a Garmin file into Strava, the elevation gain goes down, I think this is because Strava uses contours, to be onest the elevation gained over that distance is not that much, under 6m per kilometer

Had a look at a ride on my Garmin Training Center and 986 ft became 161m loaded into strava, where 986ft is about 300m

 

[vedrafjord]

Strava seems to do some post-upload processing and smoothing out - I've uploaded rides and at first it will say something like 1,500m altitude gain, and blank estimated watts. Then I go back and the estimated watts have been filled in, but the altitude is gone down to 1,200m.

 

[Ferminal]

Any map software is dodgy and records insignificant undulations. When you talk of elevation you should only include "categorised" climbs. I remember in 2011 hearing about how the PdB stage had almost 6000m of climbing...

 

[RedheadDane]

This could potentially be a matter of different ways of writing numbers.
Assuming Danish and Dutch ways of doing it are similar - and that Terpstra is using Dutch setting - the explanation would be something like this:

For decimals a , is used. 1½ for example would be written 1,5.
To separate digits in large numbers a . is used. "thousand" for example would be written 1.000.

If that's what's happening here, then the elevation of P-R is just over a metre, which I don't think is that much.

If it isn't... then I'll just jump on the it's the bouncing from the cobbles bandwagon!

 

[William H]

There's infinite elevation, because of fractals

 

[icefire]

There's infinite elevation, because of fractals

That would also make for infinite distance. Can you imagine a neverending P-R?

 

[Pentacycle]

There's infinite elevation, because of fractals

So much yes in this.

 

[rghysens]

That would also make for infinite distance. Can you imagine a neverending P-R?

Not necessarily, just as some fractals have an infinite circumference but a finite surface.

 

[Echoes]

As a matter of fact there's a lot of ups and downs in the region of the Valenciennois prior to Aremberg. That is close to the French Ardennes where the International Criterium was held in the early 21st century. The "Pévèle" is much flatter (which makes that bit ... harder, right?)

The Hameau du Buat section has slopes up to 6%. The Belgians call it the Paris-Roubaix's Eikenberg. Was added to the race in 2005, as a substitute for the Aremberg Forest but was kept ever since while the Forest came back.


..and of course you've got a very hard false flat in Hem where riders have to fight with what is left of their strengths. That is where Cancellara attacked behind Van Summeren in 2011.