Interactive Bicycling Parameters index

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IBP is an index punctuation that values the difficulty of a mountain bike route or a road bike route.

It is obtained by latitude, length and height information in plenty of points of the tour.

That points are obtained from the track recorded in the GPS, which gathers them automatically with an approximately cadence of 50 point per km (depending on the groove variations and direction changes) The distances crossed in each raise and descent (1%,5%,10% etc..) are calculated from that points.

It is calculated the representative % above the total, the total meters raised and descended, the average rates of raise and descent, the total km and the distribution of the raising sections.

A mathematical standardized formula is applied. It gives a punctuation between 0 and infinite, This punctuation is 100%. Objective. No subjective value such as groove conditions, time needed, climatic factors or physical form are taken account.

This index is useful to know the difficulty grade of different routes compared among them. As subjective factors are not taken account, the value takes different importance depending on everyone.

For example, an IBP valued 60 will be a very hard route for an inexperienced person, quite easy for someone who has a medium training and very easy for a professional.

Another formula to use IBP is to know the difficulty of a new route drawn in the map manually with a program such as: oziexplorer © or compegps ©. As long as track points have the height, it will be valid to obtain the index.

Example