alt Hacker NewsI suspect that this would result in absurdly long routes. Imagine trying to go up a mountain while minimizing grade... you'd end up zig-zagging back and forth endlessly.
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Unless you are on foot (and even then) the route needs to follow existing roads, you can only zig zag as much as existing roads do it not endlessly.
And almost any practical routing system will have a mechanism for tradeoffs of different aspects. Often there is a distance/time tradeoff which directly relates to speed on corresponding segments. But the tradeoff can also be in the form of "on average x seconds spent waiting green light in each intersection or time to stop before railroad crossing. So there is no reason for a system optimizing grade to completely ignore all other factors, it's just a question of weights and curves of each of them.
Like the ascent to Mt. Hamilton (southern Bay Area). You can see the peak for like an hour but so much twisting back and forth, going mostly perpendicular to the max gradient. It is an old road and hence graded for mules to carry up telescopes.
well. That or a nice spiral! :)
Isn’t that exactly how you build a trail up a mountainside? They are usually a series of switchbacks.
Most people on most bikes can only take so much grade before climbing becomes impossible. A maximum grade setting would be very helpful for that exact reason.