#Atlantic2Andes Cycle - Why not cycle downhill?

When I published the post about my upcoming #Atlantic2Andes cycle I immediately got a call from my dear little sister asking why I didn't just cycle from La Paz to Sao Paulo or the Andes to the Atlantic... And if you look at the map above I can completely understand her thought process as there is seems to be a lot of up... Roughly 46,863m of up to give it a number! (5.2x Everest) It all sounds very daunting indeed...

But while it may appear to be vastly easier to cycle "downhill" the maths makes it slightly easier for me to digest. Sao Paulo Airport is actually at 750m (I know I am not starting at the actual Atlantic but it worked well for the name... #Airport2Andes doesn't have the same ring to it) and La Paz is at 3631m. So while the overall ascent is huge the actual difference is only 2881m. While that is still a huge climb it is somehow more manageable in my mind.

The total ascent for the "downhill" route from La Paz to Sao Paulo is 43,992m...

So if you are travelling a very long distance it doesn't really matter about the altitude of the start and end point because the total ascent is not determined by the difference, it is determined by the terrain in between and it's almost the same both ways!

The daily distances are going to be an equally daunting challenge (116km/day for 30 days). But lets touch on that in a different post.

For the total ascent calculations I have used https://www.doogal.co.uk/RouteElevation.php