Projects 2010 > Hills are Evil > Journal
Given the name of this project, you may not be surprised to learn that the people involved in it consider pushing up steep gradients (aka hills) in wheelchairs to be not much fun!
But before we get into that I’d like to introduce myself. I’m Ian, a full time wheelchair user and I’m lazy and unfit (yes, those two are probably linked…). In this post I want to share why I think hills are evil and the great benefits of a ‘heads-up!’
Knowledge is everything
The need to push up a steep hill occurs for one of two reasons:
- There is no other way: The place you need to go is at the top of the hill - no way to help out with this.
- Bad planning/ignorance: You’re new to the area and didn’t realise quite how steep the mountain separating you and your destination was.
The Hills Are Evil project is hoping to help out in the second situation. As part of that we have developed a tool that provides a visual representation of the gradient change you will encounter on a route. The idea is to provide some warning: nobody wants to push up a steep hill and then go straight into a meeting!
You can see a screenshot of the tool in action below. The marker on the left shows the start point and the marker on the right shows the end point. The blue graph shows the peaks and troughs to be considered on the route.
At this point in time we are in the process of integrating topographical data into this tool e.g. amount of time spent on cobbles during the route – so watch this space!
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