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Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2008 9:55 pm
by wombatK
I have done a little work with my GPS on Bowen Mountain road yesterday, and found I need to correct my guesstimate above.

The mountain road is steeper than any of the other places mentioned. I used Oziexplorer to log points every 10 m, and found that the GPS accuracy was variable due to trees obscuring sats at various points. Nevertheless, the graph below shows the elevation profile, starting from 2 Bunya Cres, taking Bowen Mt Rd down to Grose Vale Rd, then coming back up the same roads to Bunya Cres and on to 1 Lieut. Bowen Rd (the highest point) - then back down via Bellbird Cres and Wattle St.

The graph includes 1 in 8 slope lines as a guide to the slope, and shows both the gradient over 10 m and averaged over 90 m.

Image

The climb is murderous averaging 1 in 16 (6.25%) over 5 km :roll: The worst part is around 20 to 34 Wattle, where it reaches around 1 in 7 (or 15%) and has a couple of 10 m stretches near 18%.

After a bit of googling, I found a number of rural councils have road standards that require slopes to be no more than 12.5%. Up to 15% is allowed on private driveways - but the indication is that anything over 12.5% is considered a big safety risk for public thoroughfares.

Estimating based on angle of vertical poles is obviously not very accurate. I expect that all the other examples I cited will turn out to be somewhere between 10 and 12.5% slopes. Still way outside my capability - I cheated by carting my GPS up Bowen Mountain in my car :P
RobS wrote: My cousin lives in that area. Is it actually safe to cycle on that road, the road is quite narrow and there's some blind corners. That whole section around Serpentine Ln and Wattle St looks fairly evil. So Wattle st is even worse?
By sight Wattle St seemed worst, and the GPS agreed. However, I did only one pass on Wattle St, and elsewhere there was considerable variation in elevation and gradient readings on successive runs (in opposite directions). It's plausible that the gradient is more like 12.5% rather than the 15% values I sampled. See this Google Earth Route for a full log of what my GPS saw - if you'd like to study the GPS samples closer and see how erratic they get.

Bowen Mt Road is quite narrow, has no shoulders, so it is pretty evil, and traffic was surprisingly unsparse for such an end-of-the-road township. I'd take my hat off to anyone attempting it - particularly if they ride all the way up from Richmond - it's pretty much a constant uphill climb.

Edited: 30/08 - added KMZ file.

Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2008 10:07 pm
by wombatK
scotty72 wrote:Jumping in a little late.
But after a similar conversation with a mate of mine, I went out with my 305 to do the math.

Ryedale Rd. (23.5% max)

The roads around Calga are no where near this - but they are much bigger climbs.

The top of Kissing Pt Road at Turramurra is pretty nasty. It comes in at about 16% max, but it is the 3km climb before that makes this hurt.
Ryedale Rd is nasty, but i would be very suspicious of the 23.5% max. It could be an error due to insufficient satellites in its antenna's view. Does it tell you anything about the no. of satellites or VDOP ? Or did you notice how many meters you could read that value for ?

Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2008 1:31 pm
by RobS
Wombat, thanks for the post on Bowen Mt. The elevation profile spells it out.

I won't be visiting my cousin by bicycle in a hurry - I'd be quite sweaty by the time I got there!

Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2008 10:24 am
by bud
Princes Street in Putney is definitely the steepest. You can't see some of it as you look down.

Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2008 10:25 am
by bud
bikie26 wrote:I drove from Yanko Rd pymble and through to where it becomes comenarra pwy, thornleigh and there were some killer hills. I wonder if anyone has ridden the entire length???
Yeah I have. It's hard!

Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2008 10:28 am
by bud
dhat wrote:Rydale is steeper I think, but the hill is quite short. I'll go and measure the gradient and take pics on the weekend.
Try Princes Street in Putney. That is REALLY steep! I'd like to know the gradient

Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2008 11:29 am
by Wollemi
How come no-one mentions Old Bathurst Rd - Emu Heights to East Blaxland. You can even catch the train back down and repeat...

Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2008 6:35 pm
by scotty72
Wollemi wrote:How come no-one mentions Old Bathurst Rd - Emu Heights to East Blaxland. You can even catch the train back down and repeat...
Did that last Sunday.

Up to about 18% (more at the hairpins - absolute killers on 39/23 lowest)

Not the steepest I've done. but it is probably the steepest sustained climb I've done. It is very steep for a very long time. :(

It rises 223m in 1985 metres (more, but that is just the seriously steep bit) (AT) an average 11.25%.

Can't sbe accurate about the max etc. as I was going too slow (39 / 23 is just not low enough) and there were too many trees covering the sats.

Scotty

Posted: Tue Sep 16, 2008 2:47 pm
by geoffs
Image

This was a fun hill.
found another one on this trip that was 25% for most of the way but the last bit was 30%
Even with the weight we were carrying and the wheelbase of the tandem we couldn't get traction on the gravel road and had to push the bike up the last bit of the hill.

[/img]

Posted: Tue Sep 16, 2008 3:03 pm
by mikesbytes
Geoff, where's that hill?

Posted: Tue Sep 16, 2008 3:16 pm
by geoffs
somewhere in tuscany most probably between Florence and Sienna
I've still got the maps that i used so I'll do an accurate route on bikely one of these days.
here is the link to the rough route that i went on.
http://www.bikely.com/maps/bike-path/geoffs-tour

Posted: Tue Sep 16, 2008 3:19 pm
by rob e
My lowest gear is 42 x 20 (cant access the 22!) i have no hope on any serious hills.........cant wait to get my Cervelo built with 39x27 :lol:

Posted: Tue Sep 16, 2008 3:20 pm
by Boognoss
rob e wrote:My lowest gear is 42 x 20 (cant access the 22!) i have no hope on any serious hills.........cant wait to get my Cervelo built with 39x27 :lol:
:shock: 42 x 20?? I have 39 x 27 and even that is too high sometimes :oops: .

Posted: Tue Sep 16, 2008 3:30 pm
by geoffs
anyone who used to ride seriously years ago used to use what was called a corn cob which was a 13/18 6 speed freewheel.freewheel
Couple that with 42/52 chainrings and you were set.
Compact cranksets and STI hadn't even been contemplated. I was in heaven when i bought the very first dura ace SIS downtube levers!

As the saying goes HTFU

(says he who has a compact crankset)

Posted: Tue Sep 16, 2008 3:37 pm
by rob e
Boognoss wrote:
rob e wrote:My lowest gear is 42 x 20 (cant access the 22!) i have no hope on any serious hills.........cant wait to get my Cervelo built with 39x27 :lol:
:shock: 42 x 20?? I have 39 x 27 and even that is too high sometimes :oops: .
Yes mate, this was how it was done back in the day.......i have 53/42 with a 12-22 8 speed cluster.......mind you i used to race at 74-76kgs or so compared to my now 110kgs, and managed to get up the hills fine back then :lol:

Geoffs right, we need to HTFU.

Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2008 1:45 pm
by Hebden
Hi,

Well in regard to this post... its not in Sydney but according to an RTA document I found on the net (sorry can't post the link as I am a new user) Victoria Pass between Mt Victoria and Heartly is the steepest public road in NSW. I think the average over the 2.6kms is 10% with some climbs at 13.3%.

There is a shoulder for most of the climb, and the cars aren’t going to fast past your elbow, the trucks are sometimes barely moving going up. It’s about 1hours drive west of Penrith (Western Sydney).

Cheers,

You can find the PDF by entering "Victoria Pass NSW RTA" into Google.

Quote:
1.3.2 Alignment and width
The existing highway alignment reflects the severe terrain conditions. River Lett Hill and Victoria Pass both involve a number of 45 km/h curves on steep (10 percent) grades. The best of the alignment is through the Hartley Valley section where the alignment is still marginal at a design speed of 90 km/h. The remaining length involves alignments varying between these two extremities. The urban area of Mount Victoria also involves sub-60 km/h alignments combined with narrow widths and intersections. The gradients are very steep, typically 10 percent averages over the main climbs with Victoria Pass having a section of 13.3 percent grade. This is the steepest section of classified road in NSW, and is the steepest section on any recognised freight route in NSW.
End Quote

Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2008 2:16 pm
by Slavo
Hebden wrote:The gradients are very steep, typically 10 percent averages over the main climbs with Victoria Pass having a section of 13.3 percent grade. This is the steepest section of classified road in NSW, and is the steepest section on any recognised freight route in NSW.
End Quote
There is a difference between classified and unclassified roads. basically classified roads are highways, freeways, main roads, etc where every other public road is unclassified.

Sections of Pretoria Pde/Rosemead Rd in Hornsby are quite steep.

Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2008 2:28 pm
by Hebden
Slavo wrote:
Hebden wrote:The gradients are very steep, typically 10 percent averages over the main climbs with Victoria Pass having a section of 13.3 percent grade. This is the steepest section of classified road in NSW, and is the steepest section on any recognised freight route in NSW.
End Quote
There is a difference between classified and unclassified roads. basically classified roads are highways, freeways, main roads, etc where every other public road is unclassified.

Sections of Pretoria Pde/Rosemead Rd in Hornsby are quite steep.
Ah, ok, that explains all the 20% hills people have been posting about. I thought maybe there were different ways of measuring gradiants... :?

Posted: Thu Sep 18, 2008 12:04 pm
by RainForeverRain
bud wrote:Princes Street in Putney is definitely the steepest. You can't see some of it as you look down.
That's the double hill that convinced me to change my gearing! At least there was only one climb on the way back.

Re: What is the steepest rd in Sydney?

Posted: Wed May 27, 2009 9:30 am
by rob e
for the guys in the east i have found a real stinker, short but very steep....one of the steepest i have found.....start in Wolsely St Coogee heading south turn right into Oberon and start the climb its about 100m at greater than 10%, then turn left into Dundas St and look up....next stretch is 140m at greater than 15%....it gets very steep at the top, turn right into Rainbow for the last 20 metres at 15%+.

its a 260m climb with average gradient of above 15%

a good one for hill repeats!

Re: What is the steepest rd in Sydney?

Posted: Thu May 28, 2009 1:02 am
by tinhorn
If youre looking for steep hills in Coogee, Rainbow is good heading west, but not for very long - otherwise you cant really go past Arden/beach/brook streets on the northern side of the beach. However you do have to worry about some of the cars around so in that sense its not the greatest.

However i do know a place in Gymea Bay / Grays Point called Greenhaven Rd, its a few hunderd mtrs long and is very steep and very quiet - it also leads right into the Royal National Park fire trails. This also means it leads to practically nowhere.

Re: What is the steepest rd in Sydney?

Posted: Thu May 28, 2009 10:38 am
by ni78ck
times
rob e wrote:for the guys in the east i have found a real stinker, short but very steep....one of the steepest i have found.....start in Wolsely St Coogee heading south turn right into Oberon and start the climb its about 100m at greater than 10%, then turn left into Dundas St and look up....next stretch is 140m at greater than 15%....it gets very steep at the top, turn right into Rainbow for the last 20 metres at 15%+.

its a 260m climb with average gradient of above 15%

a good one for hill repeats!

i did hill repeats up those streets last night on foot! we did it 6 :shock: times, boy are my legs sore :(

Re: What is the steepest rd in Sydney?

Posted: Thu May 28, 2009 1:34 pm
by rob e
Timhorn where do you start Rainbow heading west? There is bugger all climb there, unless you link it with Oberon and Dundas which is 40m in 270m. I dont think there is anything tougher in the east, even Arden heading north between Dolpin and Alison is 37m in 330m, and that sucks because of car traffic.

This is it fellas http://www.bikely.com/maps/bike-path/301275

Lets see if we can out do this, i am always looking for a challenge close to home.


PS. Nick i had to read your post twice, i thought you did 6 hill repeats on your bike....thats good going :)

Re: What is the steepest rd in Sydney?

Posted: Thu May 28, 2009 5:20 pm
by ni78ck
rob e wrote:Timhorn where do you start Rainbow heading west? There is bugger all climb there, unless you link it with Oberon and Dundas which is 40m in 270m. I dont think there is anything tougher in the east, even Arden heading north between Dolpin and Alison is 37m in 330m, and that sucks because of car traffic.

This is it fellas http://www.bikely.com/maps/bike-path/301275

Lets see if we can out do this, i am always looking for a challenge close to home.


PS. Nick i had to read your post twice, i thought you did 6 hill repeats on your bike....thats good going :)
i think im scared doing it with my bike :o . i have visions going too slowly and not being able to clip out! i do like going down that hill on my way back from la pa :)

Re:

Posted: Thu May 28, 2009 10:01 pm
by sandman
Hebden wrote:
Slavo wrote:
Hebden wrote:The gradients are very steep, typically 10 percent averages over the main climbs with Victoria Pass having a section of 13.3 percent grade. This is the steepest section of classified road in NSW, and is the steepest section on any recognised freight route in NSW.
End Quote
There is a difference between classified and unclassified roads. basically classified roads are highways, freeways, main roads, etc where every other public road is unclassified.

Sections of Pretoria Pde/Rosemead Rd in Hornsby are quite steep.
Ah, ok, that explains all the 20% hills people have been posting about. I thought maybe there were different ways of measuring gradiants... :?
Mate she's a nice climb thats for sure.. Think Bnej hit that climb at 150km, I hit it at 100km, it hurts... then what about Megalong Valley ?? That is a ripper, sure you can "lollygaggle" up the thing but to get some pace happening, its got hurt written all over it as it just goes n goes n goes, relentless :-)

Sandman