Hey I’m curious does anyone know what is the process for rating climbs (e.g., 1, 2, 3 etc.), are there minimum elevation gains/requirements, or is it just someone’s judgement…I mean what’s harder a 2 mile climb at 8% avg. grade or 5 miles at a 5% avg. grade???
Good question. I’d like to know also.
Do a search on mountain classifications on this forum, it was discussed a few days ago.
I was listening to the eurosport.com live tour feed the other day and they were saying in the early days of the tour they determined the catagory of the climb by what gear the car had to be to drive up the road. So if they had to be in second gear, it was a cat 2. If it was too steep to drive up in 1st gear, they would turn the the car and drive up in reverse! This was the ‘beyond catagory’ climb. Keep in mind this is from the early days when the cars weren’t as powerful as today. I’m not sure if this is accurate or not, but it does make for an interesting story!
Here
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/gforum.cgi?do=post_view_threaded;post=467085;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;
The link to the page by Cvillatri explains it pretty well.
~Matt