Some occasional musings on mountain bike rides and walks in North Yorkshire, with odd bit of discussion on mapping technology thrown in for good measure
I'm playing around with a little application to help calculate how long it takes to do a route. Why do this, and why not just include a estimated time value for each route? Firstly giving a time estimate for a route is inaccurate: there's just too many variables. Rider fitness, trail conditions and unforeseen events can all conspire to make an estimate inaccurate. Instead, I have added a calculator which gives you the ability to produce an estimate that you can tweak for your own particular needs. Of course, the caveats I just listed still very much apply. In general, I found the estimates work reasonably well, at least in good conditions. You can revise the average speeds downwards to allow for winter conditions, but you still need to bear in mind that winter conditions increase the likelyhood of mechanicals and other difficulties which may slow you down. If you are using the calculator to work out if you can complete a particular route by a certain time (i.e. before it gets dark), don't forgot to allow a healthy safety margin to allow for any problems, and of course rest stops.
The page uses a modified version of Naismith's rule, with the numbers modified for mountain biking, with the addition of some 'fudge factors' to allow for the difficulty of the route, and your fitness. When you link to the page from a route it populates the length and height gain from the route for you.
In use I found it suprisingly accurate. It can't possibly allow for every unplanned puncture, every missed turn and the axle deep mud pit you'd didn't know was there. Despite this, the numbers are certainly in the ball park. You can further improve accuracy by adjusting your average speeds, if you have a reasonably good idea what these are. I allow about 17 mph on the road, and about 13 mph for off road. If it's winter, and I expect mud, I tend to use a 10 mph average, which if anything is on the high side.
Please feel free to comment on how well this works, and if you have suggestions. I'd be particularly interested to know how accurate this is compared to your own real world rides.
To see it in action, just pick a route and look at the time estimate page.
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