Harpeth Bike Club Ride

[knightmb]

This video was made more for the bike club, but since I was using my e-bike I figured I would share it here as well. Somewhere, about half way through the video is one of these insanely steep hills that allows a cyclist to coast at 50 MPH down hill.

As you can see, even without a motor, these people can move along just fine.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3245297223527610557

 

[knightmb]

Gmap Pedometer to go with this route

http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=846706

 

[Geebee]

knightmb, how do you find the accuracy of gmap?
I was just running a couple of routes in Tasmania and it was out by between 150 to 1000%.
Hopefully it is more accurate in the USA.

 

[Mathurin]

A few days ago I set out to go on a relax cruise, ended up looking this:
http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=846731

At ~2.5km I decided to go single speed on the big ring + 5th of 8 cogs, I thought it would make for a comfortable cruising cadence but turns out overall it was just a bit too steep and I wasted power. It was a nice and fresh night, just cold enough so the streets were frozen instead of wet, but warm enough so my water bottle hadn't completely frozen over by the end of the ride.

Tragedy struck at ~50km because I hit Cap Rouge hill, so I would have had to change gears or strain to make it all the way up, and break a sweat either way! I was able to save my honour by walking most of the way up, but I should have taken another route so I wouldn't have had to dismount. It's like my mental GPS insists on using routes that are normally the most convenient even though hills that are named are obviously incompatible with cruising around in single speed fat lazy bastard mode. Oh well.

 

[knightmb]

knightmb, how do you find the accuracy of gmap?
I was just running a couple of routes in Tasmania and it was out by between 150 to 1000%.
Hopefully it is more accurate in the USA.

The mileage is very close, but I think only because the maps for where I live were recently updated this year, so the accuracy appears to be good for my area. Can't speak to other areas though, as what you've already stated, them seem to be way off for your area.

 

[Geebee]

Sorry, I meant the altitude, incline angles etc.

 

[knightmb]

Sorry, I meant the altitude, incline angles etc.

Without a GPS to take along, I can't say it's 100% accurate, but I can play back the ride video and from memory know where it gets steep and where it goes downhill. It matches the elevation chart very well at least from memory.

 

[Mathurin]

Yeah, same in québec.

Install google earth and go look at a hill you're familiar with. Look it up close, and at an angle. You'll see the shape of the land is allright, but the surface image/map is painted on a little off the mark.