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Can I have some clarification regarding the colour coding of hills. I had assumed that these were absolute, that yellow hills would feel similar as would red and purple hills based on some objective criteria. However I have noticed that when planning a route the colour coding of hills sometimes changes as the route changes or develops, that some hills that were previously shown as yellow can disappear and red hills become yellow etc. Thanks
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As a general rule: orange is 3.5%-7%, red is 7%-10.5%, maroon is 10.5%+.
Rather than taking the elevation at any one single point (which can vary in very short distances) it averages it out over a short way either side. This is partly to make the graph easier to read – otherwise you end up with very very thin lines which don’t really reflect the overall character of the climb.
This averaging can vary a little depending on the length/course of the route, so if you have a section of climb at the boundary between two levels (say, 7%ish) then it’ll sometimes flick back and forth as a result. As a route gets longer, the averaging is applied over a longer section.
Hope that makes sense! You can always see the gradient for a particular climb by running your mouse over the graph and looking for the number that pops up.
Thanks very much for taking the trouble to answer. It does make sense but does not really answer my question. When I was planning a route several hills were displayed with various colours, I then amended the route extending it and some of the hills which were still there either lost the colour or went from say red to yellow. It looked as if the hills were somehow shown relative to the difficulty of the route - but from what you say this is not the case. If you would like me to provide any further information such as examples I am happy to do so. It looks like this should not happen. I will have more of a play around and see if I can work out what was happening. Thanks Again.