Question

Suppose the owner of a bicycle decides to hop on his bike and coast down a hill. if he starts at a point where the elevation is listed as 6500 ft. and coasts down to a point where the elevation is 6000 ft, and he sees from a map that the horizontal distance is listed as 1200 ft. then:
a. what is the percent grade of the hill?
b.what actual distance did he coast?

Answer 1

A. 6,000%      b.  500 FT      ok this might be it

Answer 2

Percent grade = 100*slope = $100 (\frac{6500-6000}{1200}) = 100(\frac{5}{12}) = 41.67 \%$

Actual distance is the hypotenuse to the triangle where 500  and 1200 are the legs of the triangle.
$d = \sqrt{500^2 + 1200^2} = 1300$