IBPindex

IBP index is a punctuation that values the difficulty grade of a mountain bicycle route or a road bicycle route.

It is obtained by analyzing length, latitude and height data in multiple points of the tour.

This points are obtained from the recorded track in the GPS, which collect them automatically with an aproximated cadence of 50 points per kilometer, depending on terrain variations and direction changes.

With that points, there are calculated the covered distances in the different rise and descent stretches  (1%, 5%, 10% etc...). The representatives % above the total, the total raised and descended meters, the raise and descent average ratio, the total Km and the rising stretches distribution are calculated.

A mathematical formula is applicated and it is obtained a punctuation between 0 and ∞.This is a 100% objective punctuation, there are not taken into account subjective values, as for example: Climatology, physical condition or the race pace 

The index is useful to know the difficulty grade of different routes by comparing them. This will be a personal value, as no subjective factors are taken into account

For example; An IBP of 60 will be a very hard route for a begginer, attainable for anyone with a medium level or very easy for a professional.

Another way to use IBP is knowing a new route manually drawn with a program as "OziExplorer" or "CompeGPS".Whenever the track points have the high they will be valid to obtain the index.

Nevertheless, as the mistake margin will always be present when we mark the points in the map, as well as other mistakes of the map or high mesh, the index obtained by this way won't have the same reliability as if it was obtained from the real GPS data. It is important not to confuse the  difficulty degree of a route with the pain-effort degree that we are going to suffer when carring it out ;