Assign difficulty scores to activities based on grade, elevation and terrain

[Schepers]

I've always wondered when talking with other people how difficult my courses are compared to what they are running.  Elevation gain is one measure, but not always a good indicator of how difficult the course was. Steep hills can take more out of you than a gradual hill.

Would be great if Strava could categorize courses, or offer some kind of difficulty score.  (GAP doesn't quite do it either).  When watching the Tour de France, they have categories for specific hills.  Would be great if you could categorize individual hills during a run, but better yet to categorize the entire course.  Boston may be net downhill, but it's a lot tougher than running a flat course.  Courses that have hills at the end would be more difficult than the hill at the beginning.  There's a lot that goes into that determination, just hoping someone can come up with a good formula.

I just think it would be a very interesting conversation piece for people to be able to talk about the difficulty level of the courses they've ran.  And for them to analyze which runs they have coming up.

[Jane]

Hello @Schepers 

Thanks for posting about this.  Could I get some additional clarification around your suggestion?

Are you suggesting that Strava develop an algorithm that could assign a difficulty score to created  routes on Strava, taking into account various factors such as grade and terrain?  

Would you see this score being assigned to every created route on Strava, the suggested Strava routes, or both?

Thank you.

[Schepers]

Yes, I'm suggesting some sort of algorithm taking into account grade/terrain.

Not necessarily looking for the score to be put on routes, though that would be a good idea.  I'm looking for that score on each running activity (and I guess biking/hiking).

Imagine going to a marathon where you are talking with lots of different runners from various regions.....of course talking about all the different runs you've done and trying to compare those runs.  Usually elevation gain comes into the discussion for a particular race, but then talking about where that elevation is in the race and if it was gradual or steep.  I think it would be neat if we could talk about the scores for the hills, as well as an overall score for the course.

I got the idea from watching the Tour de France, when they mention that a particular hill is a Category 4 climb (easy) to Category 1 hard, or "Hors Category" which is too difficult to categorize.  I don't know how they measure it, but just thought if we could get those same categories or some sort of score on our runs, that would make great conversation pieces.

Not sure if surface would be a factor as well.  I just did a rail trail marathon in West Virginia that was pretty much all down hill, but my time wasn't good.  Not sure if I just had a bad day or if it was because of the surface.

Lots of factors can come into play, so not sure how difficult this recommendation would be, but thought I'd throw it out there.

[tgrotenhuis]

I'd like to see something like @Schepers is suggesting.  

I would love to be able to compare routes with varying distances, altitudes, terrains, elevation gain and loss.  Is route A (that is 7.8 miles long with 1614 feet of elevation gain and 490 feet of elevation loss) more or less difficult than route B (which is 8 miles and has 980 feet of gain and 871 feet of loss)?

And, ultimately, boil it down to a set of numbers so that one can answer how much more difficult one route is over the other. For example: "Route A is 12.3% more difficult than route B"

[Jane]

Hello @Schepers 

Thanks for the clarification.  

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