Routes - total elevation gain v. total climbing

Hello?

Sorry Susan we weren't ignoring you, this one just got past me.

To answer your question:

The climbing value ISN'T calculated as the difference between the lowest point and the highest point on a route. It's the total climbing value for the route. The elevation for each point on the route is compared with the previous point. If the difference is positive it's added to the climbing total. There isn't a way to manually set the climbing value. I suppose that's something that could be added to the next version.

I think there's an error with the calculation, as I have the same issues as Susan.  I brought it up before, but the total elevation (after resetting elevation) is usually more than what the elevation profile would suggest.  If I click to show elevation, I get some realistic elevation profiles, but the reset elevation totals almost always end up being more than they should be. 

The profile is taken directly from the same numbers. I've tested it a couple of times on different routes and the numbers have all matched up. Can you give me an example of one where they're not correct?

I deleted the route that was making me crazy that I posted about above.  I'll save my route this weekend and see if I'm still having problems.

Interesting, thanks for the example. I'll be looking at this over the weekend.

Do you know how that was created? Was it uploaded from another source? When I view that and use the 'Reset Elevation' function, both elevation values are changed and the total ends up matching everywhere. I also recreated it manually and it looks
fine: http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/discussion/training/map.asp?route...

Here's last weekend's ride:
Brook Forest Loop

The profile map from the club's website says it is about 3000' of climbing.  Does the BT route look right to you at over 4000' of climbing? 

Thanks!

eta:  looks like I got my roads confused and called it Buffalo Park loop -- is it possible to change the name and the description?


Edited by skarl 2009-09-16 9:23 AM

It might be because of the nature of my routes since I'm going either up or down, but this one is the major example that made me realize the totals were more than they should be.
http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/discussion/training/map.asp?routeid=104972

according to the total, I should be getting about 200 feet of climbing per mile, and it looks closer to 100 according to the elevation profile (which looks accurate to me and according to others who have ridden this course)

Here's another one which shoes 1800 feet of climbing over 15 miles, while the biggest climb is only about 130 feet, but I'd need to do that each mile to get that total.

http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/discussion/training/map.asp?routeid=99280

This one claims >2000 feet over 11 miles, and according to the elevation graph, half of it was downhill, so that would mean almost 400 feet per mile (during those climbing miles)

http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/discussion/training/map.asp?routeid=103438

Was this uploaded from a Garmin or GPX file or was it created manually? If a route is uploaded the Route Tracker will use the elevation values it's given. 

To change the name and description, click the Edit button in your Route Manager and then click the 'Save Route' button. That will allow you to change the information about the route.

When I reset elevation, the total elevation gain is greater than the 1st # I get when I create the route and greater than the elevation on the group's profile map and less than the elevation on my garmin which is what I downloaded it from.   Maybe all 4 #s are wrong and I should just use the average of them and stop worrying about it

If you do a forum search there are some pretty involved threads on this subject with posts by people who do cartography/geographic analysis etc for a living. What it comes down to is that this is actually a very complex subject and you're not going to get a 100% accurate elevation reading that agrees across measurers and methods.

That said, you can get numbers that are more than good enough. What you really want is a consistent way to compare elevations from one route to the next.  You're not trying to guide a cruise missile under enemy radar at Mach 2.0, you just want to know if one run has more climbing than another. Will you know for a fact down to a margin of error of a few feet for a 20 mile bike route? No. The technology for that simply doesn't exist at the consumer level. It probably will at some point, but in 2009 it's not there.

I personally find that using the Garmin to collect the location data via GPS and then using the 'reset elevation' feature to query the USGS elevation dataset with that location information achieves this goal.  I get reasonably accurate elevation numbers that are measured consistently.

Thanks Mike!  I'll stop being so picayune