Adirondack Park Loop Cycling Route - What Is Total Climb Recorded On The Ride???

[Craig Matis]

To anyone who has biked the Adirondack Park Loop.  What was your total elevation gain (climb) and mileage for the entire trip?  The ACA website shows a total climb of 23,835' counterclockwise and 23,890' clockwise.  When I lay the ride out with Google Maps the total climb is only about 15,000'.  That is a huge difference.  Thanks very much for any information you can provide.

[avrin]

I got 22,673 and I think my gps was not on 100% of the ride.

[HobbesOnTour]

Never trust Google for anything important to do with a bike.

[Craig Matis]

Thank you for the input!  As I drive deeper into bike touring I am finding Goggle, Garmin, and other ride planning and tracking systems all have their flaws and errors.  Thanks again.

[HobbesOnTour]

I have a bit of time so I'll add to my anti Google comment.
Elevation info is notoriously inaccurate for reasons that I am not qualified to explain but most are perfectly adequate for a bike tourist's needs. A GPS device recording a ride will usually have a different elevation gain than a phone in your pocket recording the same ride. And your buddy with a different GPS device will have different numbers again. Mapping elevation is complex and difficult, recording it is variable.

I apply an 80:20 rule to Google Maps & Google Translate: 80% of the time it does what you want but 20% of the time it will get you in real trouble. Sometimes they are bad odds.

On elevation I have found the gradient information to be as important as the total elevation gain. It helps to know what a 2/4/8/12% gradient feels like.
The other day I had a 25km leg to finish my day with a little over 200 meters of altitude gain. With 10km to go I still had 200m to climb and with 5km to go I had 180m to climb. In fact, the last 2km was all downhill!

I use Osmand (an app) as my backup/emergency planner. One of its many features is pretty accurate elevation and gradient information. For each ride it will tell me how many Kms 0-4%, 4-8% etc. It's far from perfect but tends to overstate rather than understate and since it works offline can be taken out at anytime to check and compare alternatives.

Hope this helps

[HikeBikeCook]

While planning your trip it is nice to know the elevation gain for the day, but to me grade is more important. More than anything, I think heat and physical condition (and mood) has a bigger impact on my ride.

That being said, I have found that the Ride with GPS professional subscription ($80/year) is a pretty good investment provided it is in your budget and you travel enough to make it worthwhile. My Garmin 1030P warns me of climbs but often the short step ones (10%+ grade) it does not bother to mention are harder than a 2 mile long slog of a hill that is only 4% grade.

I have also had weird glitches on reporting speed, RPM, heart rate, and grade on my Garmin - like 52 MPH on a loaded touring bike - never happened since I was getting a slight shimmy at 27 MPH that day due to load balance and was braking around 25 MPH. I think tree coverage impacts GPS accuracy and radio interference impacts ANT+ communications sometimes since I always get weird glitches at the same spot on my training ride.

Overall, I think the GPS does provide near accurate ride data. RWGPS is pretty good, but again a few elevations reported at 17% grade that I rode and did not think was accurate.

[Craig Matis]

The more I learn about GPS the more there is to know.  I am planning to do the Transamerican ride in 2024 and will be doing a deep dive on GPS to know how good it is as a tool.  Your inputs help greatly.  Thanks.