What is a flat route?

[Thomk]

What sort of elevation on a 10 mile or 20 mile route is considered flat? When does it become hilly? What is a tough gradient? When I started commuting I thought one of my routes was pretty hilly but I am beginning to think it's fairly flat and the hillyness was in my mind.

 

[roadrash]

question ... what is a flat route
answer ..... a myth

 

[magnatom]

I think it depends on you. What is hilly to you, might be flat to someone else. That also changes with time.

When I first started commuting I remember calling my commute 'fairly hilly'. It was 5 miles.

I now do a 12 mile each way commute that takes in nearly all of the original commute. I am a lot fitter than I was then, and there is no way I would call my original commute hilly now. My new one is fairly hilly, and contains a few steep sections with 10%+ gradients for reasonable distances. I also have an alternative hillier route!

I've also found that the more I cycle the more I want hills. I even moved house to get closer to them.

 

[XmisterIS]

If I don't have to use the granny ring ... it's flat!

 

[Matthames]

Part of my route is billiard table flat for about 3-4 miles.

 

[fossyant]

If I don't have to use the granny ring ... it's flat!

Granny rings are for girls !

 

[fossyant]

1000 ft per 10 miles is hilly - very easily done round here. Like User9609 - 1000 ft over 20 miles or more is fairly flat.

 

[4F]

Suffolk.

 

[Mozzy]

Canal paths are pretty flat, then they would be I guess or all the water would run away.

Mozzy

 

[numbnuts]

Granny rings are for girls !

with out my granny I would be pushing, use what ever turns your wheels

 

[Thomk]

Granny rings are for girls !

& me

 

[Thomk]

1000 ft per 10 miles is hilly - very easily done round here. Like User9609 - 1000 ft over 20 miles or more is fairly flat.

This confirms that my route is fairly flat (600ft over 12 miles). I sort of knew it but it doesn't feel like it on the naughty bits.

 

[Browser]

(smug mode on) A flat route is, depending upon which way I go, any route within a 10-30 mile radius of my house. This of course includes my commute (smug mode off).

It does, of course, mean that to get anywhere I have to pedal all the time, no rolling down hills, so it can get a tad dull.

 

[LosingFocus]

1000 ft per 10 miles is hilly - very easily done round here. Like User9609 - 1000 ft over 20 miles or more is fairly flat.

I'm getting 729ft of climb in my lunchtime 11miler in Essex, which is a flat county. Impressed to know that this is, in fact, borderline hilly.

 

[Dave Crampton]

My commute home is 360ft climb over 18 miles. I don't know what it is on the way in. Its not the hills which kill me but the wind over the Forth Road Bridge which is predominantly SW blowing so fine going home but into work can be a struggle/slow.