Topo! Topo! Topo!

Yesterday was a bit warmer than the previous several days, but I didn't have much get up and go. I knew I needed a recovery day or two without any hills, but was hoping that I could put it off until the cold snap that starts tomorrow.

I did take a bit of a ride and ran into local bike, hike, greenspace activist Greg Good. I'd been curious about the relative elevation of different spots in the area and had intended to call Greg anyway, so it was a nice coincidence. Greg suggested TopoZone.com as a good source. Check them out for online and printable topo maps of any spot in the US. I haven't spent enough time there to know what all is possible under the free service, but just being able to see the topo maps is great in itself.

Greg mentioned being able to click on points to compare elevation, but my impression is that you have to join their TopoZone Pro pay service for that capability. Being a cheapskate frugal, I dug out the old topo maps from my long ago hiking days and practiced up on reading them.

I'm using the USGS Morgantown North Quadrangle, 7.5 Minute Series map 1st produced in 1957 and "photorevised" in 1976. You wouldn't want to be using this to find the local features anymore, but most of the hills are still here. The contour lines represent 20 feet of elevation with bolder lines at the even 100 foot intervals.

I've been obsessing about Sixth Street so I thought I'd take a look at it on the map since it's been too slippery out for me to have another go at it on the bike. You can click the image at the right for a really detailed view. I've circled in yellow the spot where the bottom of Sixth Street crosses the rail trail. The upper yellow circle is the intersection shown in the photos in my earlier post. The heavy red line is a busy major through street, but luckily there is a stop light. Counting from there, you can see that the first block gains less than forty feet of elevation. The second block is a bit steeper, then about 70 feet of elevation in the final block.

The rail trail is at about 830 feet above sea level here and the second yellow mark is about 980 (the darker red contour line about midway between the points is 900 feet). We're getting well past the limits of my math skills here, but I'll venture an estimate that the bike actually travels about 1300 feet between these points and that the average grade is a little under 12 percent. Of course the final block isn't average , with a good chunk of the total elevation gain there.

My best guess while on the hill was 25 percent for the last block (a "one in four"-one foot of elevation for every four feet of travel). The numbers seem to show it being even steeper, but topo maps are not absolutely precise to this level.

I hope this gives you an idea of the fun and useful information you can pull from these maps. Check out the great info at the U.S. Geological Survey website, search for online maps at TopoZone, or check Google and see what you can come up with. Then you can curl up by the fire and plan those summer rides.