For some reason, I never noticed this thread till it was linked to another.
In the rather academic analysis of the different ways that the steepness road climbs might be expressed, the practical needs of cyclists seem to have been missed. It seems to me that a cyclist would benefit from two bits of info about a hill: "in no particular order" how bad is the steepest bit? How much height is gained for distance travelled? All I could say with any certainty is that the current hotch-potch of signs, whether expressed in %ages, ratios or even £-s-d., doesn't provide either. Nor is there any obvious consistency, so something signed 1:10 in one area may go unnoticed elsewhere, or be signed 1:7. Furthermore, and as I've posted before, OS chevrons don't seem to provide much consistency either: I've noted the number of chevrons on a hill increasing between editions - which seems to confirm the reports coming up from my legs but not the reality - and one case of the chevrons being reversed on the same hill.
Remember, the son of the squaw on the hippopotamus, is equal to .....