How Steep is a 22-Percent Climb?
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Wed July 05 2017
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Posted Jul 5, 2017
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If you tuned in to Wednesday's Tour de France coverage of Stage 5, you may have watched the lung-busting finish on La Planche des Belles Filles—a Category 1 mountain-top finish that maxed out a 22-percent grade.
So how does this grade compare to anything in Des Moines? Glad you asked. Gary Hlavka, a retired City of Des Moines engineer who now works part-time in his former department, dug out some Des Moines streets you may have attempted to conquer—or avoid.
We asked Gary—a year-round bike commuter—if there's anything close to a Cat 1 climb in the capital city. In a word, no:
*Sherwood from ML King to Oakshire: 15% (ugh)
*28th Street from Terrace Road to Forest Drive: 13%—a killer for cross-country runners
*17th Street from Woodland to Pleasant: a wimpy 10% in the Sherman Hill Neighborhood
Yes, there certainly are steeper climbs in Iowa. If memory serves me right, one of the steepest streets RAGBRAI riders have seen was a side street in Lehigh, a community south of Fort Dodge.