Guide
How hard is a triathlon course? Reading it without an elevation figure
Only 10 of 159 races publish a bike elevation. For the others, the course labels, the air temperature and the course description are what you have.
Method
The figures that exist
Elevation is the figure most people look for first. The organiser states it for 10 bike courses, from the course page prose, and those are the only figures this site holds:
- IRONMAN 70.3 Eagleman: about 101 m on the bike, labelled flat
- IRONMAN 70.3 Ohio: about 250 m on the bike, labelled flat
- IRONMAN 70.3 Dallas-Little Elm: about 427 m on the bike, labelled rolling
- IRONMAN 70.3 Vitoria-Gasteiz: about 500 m on the bike, labelled rolling
- IRONMAN 70.3 Poreč: about 680 m on the bike, labelled rolling
- IRONMAN Calella-Barcelona: about 750 m on the bike, labelled flat
- IRONMAN 70.3 Portugal-Cascais: about 771 m on the bike, labelled rolling
- IRONMAN 70.3 Bolton: about 840 m on the bike, labelled rolling
- IRONMAN 70.3 Costa Navarino, Peloponnese, Greece: about 857 m on the bike, labelled rolling
- IRONMAN 70.3 Vilamoura-Algarve: about 1169 m on the bike, labelled hilly
Labels
What the labels say about those figures
Set against those figures, the labels overlap. A course labelled flat can publish more climbing than one labelled rolling, because the label describes the character of the course and the figure its total. A long course with gentle gradients can add up to more metres than a short one with a single steep climb.
The labels remain useful at the ends of the scale. Hilly on both the bike and the run is rare, with 5 races on the calendar, and it describes courses where climbing shapes the whole day.
The other half of difficulty
Heat changes a race as much as climbing does. Every race on this site publishes a high air temperature, from 0 °C to 38 °C, and the race pages show where each race ranks on it among races of the same distance.
Cut-offs decide whether a hard day ends with a finish. They are published on the race's own pages for 4 races, and in the athlete guide for the others.
Side by side
Compare courses that publish a figure
These three state their bike elevation. The table shows how label and figure line up.
| Field | No race selected | No race selected | No race selected |
|---|---|---|---|
| Distance | not published | not published | not published |
| Date | not published | not published | not published |
| Country | not published | not published | not published |
| Registration | not published | not published | not published |
| Swim venue | not published | not published | not published |
| Average water temperature | not published | not published | not published |
| High air temperature | not published | not published | not published |
| Low air temperature | not published | not published | not published |
| Bike profile | not published | not published | not published |
| Bike elevation gain | not published | not published | not published |
| Run profile | not published | not published | not published |
| Run elevation gain | not published | not published | not published |
| Overall cut-off | not published | not published | not published |
| World championship slots | not published | not published | not published |
| Altitude | not published | not published | not published |
| First edition | not published | not published | not published |
| Swim start | not published | not published | not published |
Rows marked “not published” are fields no source publishes for these races. No score is computed from the rows above: a single number would hide which of them decided it. Figures read on 22 Sept 2026.
Source and reading date
Each elevation was read from the course page of the race on 22 September 2026 and checked against the sentence it came from. Figures stated in feet are converted.
Questions
Why not estimate elevation from a map?
An estimate from a map depends on the route file, the elevation model and the smoothing used, and two tools can differ by hundreds of metres. This site only holds figures the organiser states.
Which course publishes the most climbing?
Among the 10 that publish a figure, IRONMAN 70.3 Vilamoura-Algarve, at about 1169 m on the bike.
Filter on the labels, then read the figures
The finder filters on course labels. Each race page gives the figure when one exists.
