Determine Elevation Profile on Internet???

[witeowl]

OK, I know that there are many websites at which I can design a route and know exactly how many miles I'll be doing. But, is there a way I can design a route and know what the elevation/hill profiles will be?

I have a Garmin, so I can figure out how much I accomplished afterwards, but I'm afraid of just wandering around and getting into a canyon that I'm not ready for and absolutely tears me down.

[Fredwina]

Two that I know of are gmap-pedometer.com and toporoute.com . I'm sure there's others....

[Veronica]

Not sure if all Garmins do this. I program my route on my laptop and can then look at in Google Earth. It won't give me total elevation, but at least I have an idea of where I'm going. Then I transfer it to the Garmin. I have the 60CSx.

V.

[DeniseGoldberg]

routeslip.com (http://www.routeslip.com) will show you an elevation profile after you create your route. I suspect there are other sites out there also - it seems that many of these sites are based on Google maps, so they all end up with similar capabilities.

--- Denise

[Cassandra_Cain]

routeslip.com (http://www.routeslip.com) will show you an elevation profile after you create your route. I suspect there are other sites out there also - it seems that many of these sites are based on Google maps, so they all end up with similar capabilities.

--- Denise

Wow - this is sooooo neat - as I'd been trying my hardest to figure out the elevation profile of my favorite route. Thanks for sharing :D

[luv'nAustin]

sorry, I'm hihacking this thread for a minute. Just wondering if you could tell me how long your battery lasts on your garmin. My DH gave me one recently and I have found that the battery only lasts for 50 miles. Is this normal?

Thanks!

[SnappyPix]

I tried using Google map to work out my elevation, but it didn't work for me.
When I clicked on a location a few kilometres away from my house, it had the altitude as 45 metres - in the middle of the ocean! I tried this several times, but still got the same reading.
The reading for my house was 8 metres. I subsequently bought a Polar S725 and calibrated the altitude at sea level - my house actually has an altitude of64 metres - that's quite a discrepancy!
I'm not sure if this is because NZ isn't properly covered by GoogleMaps yet - although my particular area was pretty well detailed.

[SouthernBelle]

Routeslips is great esp for the US. I'm not so sure about internationally though.

My only problem is that when I done a hard ride with lots of climbs, then go put it in routeslips only to discover that I hadn't climbed as much as I thought!

[GLC1968]

toporoute.com is nice because if you choose to use the option, it'll 'snap' to the curves of the roads for you. This is great when you live in an area where there are no straight roads! ;)

It does have a size limit though. It wouldn't save my 75 mile ride for me. :(

[cherinyc]

All of the recommendations on this thread are FANTABULOUS!!! I have been looking for this ability for months now, and not having it has made me hesitant to go out on rides alone - since I wasn't able to plan a route according to distance, direction, etc. There are so many back country roads around where I am, and I am afraid I will get lost (and up riding 50 miles when I have planned to do 20) if I don't plan my route with some kind of cue sheet - directions, etc.
Only complaint is that I went to routeslip.com and created an account - and a route - and the stupid site won't let me see the route now. I sent a "bug-report" but, we'll see.
The toporoute.com site is great b/c you can have it follow the road - i don't think there are any straight roads out here, it's crazy curvy (like me :p ). I wish the distance showed up while you were plotting the route though, rather than it being on a separate page.
oh well. i am just really happy to learn about them. Thanks everyone!!!
cheri

[SadieKate]

Will routeslip work better if you decrease the zoom level? Can you open the route and change that, resave and see the route?

http://www.routeslip.com/map.php?map=2980

[witeowl]

You guys rock, thanks! That's exactly what I was looking for! I even found some new cycling routes that other people have created. :)

Oh, and my Garmin (301) claims to last 13 hours, but all I know for sure is that it's lasted over eight. If it's on warranty, I'd get it checked out. If not, perhaps you can replace the rechargable battery?

You should have seen my face when I dropped it onto concrete yesterday, though. No significant harm, but I did crack the screen and it's affected part of the display. My baby! :eek:

Thanks again.

[SouthernBelle]

Routeslips is done by a cyclist, not by any big company. So the guy is still working out bugs. My laptop does not like the site. :D But it works fine on my desktop. So anywho, he seems like a nice guy and is putting in a lot of work.

[cherinyc]

Will routeslip work better if you decrease the zoom level? Can you open the route and change that, resave and see the route?

http://www.routeslip.com/map.php?map=2980

eghhhhh - no. don't think that's working. i tried going to Edit - then shrinking it down, hitting Save - then reopening. It just says "Loading... Please wait." where the map should be - and at the bottom of the page it just says "Done" with the icon that looks like the one in our "Post Icons" the yellow triangle w/ the ! inside.

Either way, the cyclist that created this is very smart for doing so.
I work off of a laptop that is connected to a docking station at work. maybe that's why it's not working?

[luv'nAustin]

Thanks Witeowl! I will have REI take a look at it, and at the same time I'll see if they can get the cadence to work too. It is fun to look at the rides on a map. Makes me want to try some new routes!

[Kano]

First: Thanks White Owl for asking about this!

Second: Thanks for the links, ladies! This made me think yet again about whether or not to go on the ride we've got planned for this weekend, and it made DH say "COOL!" and then, where did all those feet come from? First there's the big hill, then there's a bunch of little hills along with it, that's where all those feet came from! Danged things add up!

(the up side of hills being my least favorite part of riding at this point, and almost 850 feet of that up side on this ride, well, you can see why I'm struggling with this one! Well, it's more the being part of a group and climbing this/these hills, I think than if it was just the two of us! I could find myself getting mighty snippy at the man who says things like "you don't have to slow down, you know")

Karen in Boise

[SadieKate]

Routeslip.com seems to be working much better these days, though my home laptop still likes it better than my work laptop. I was able to map a 102 mile route the other day so it's happier about long routes. I just saved the route every 20 miles as I went. It's also best to keep to a minimum the dots along your route. Each click adds data that makes the file larger, but you need some to make the route line up with the winding roads.

One cool thing is to turn on the hybrid link so you can combine the map with the satellite photos. I know we all played with the Frappr map but to see it with your route is pretty cool. You can see the ridges and valleys.

One thing though is that it seems to over estimate the total climbing. I had a very short ride that came out high but I finally put it to the test this last weekend with a longer route. Routeslip said 4,134 ft for the route below but my Polar said 3,395. Pretty significant variance. It seems from what others have said that Polar is pretty accurate.

http://www.routeslip.com/map.php?map=3249

Anyway, just thought I'd share. The map above is for a 54 mile loop east of the Napa Valley. The development you can see is the Napa Valley and you can see the redwoods at the tops of the ridges we climb. The lake off to the east is Lake Berryessa and the road on it's west side is the Knoxville Grade, portions of which are on the Knoxville Double.

[Veronica]

Routeslip is one of those sites that does not like Mozilla.

V.

[CorsairMac]

ok - either I'm missing something or it doesn't like my system either: I'm trying to create a route of my daily commute and when I click on create route all I get is a blue box??????


I'm really hoping this works coz I've got routes I really REALLy want to create for my century rides................

[Cassandra_Cain]

I really really like toporoute.com - it is pretty easy to use and has a simple interface. Plus you have the option of having your proposed route follow the road exactly - useful for really curvy routes.

The real treat for me is being able to see a distance/elevation profile for my ride, like this:

http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g300/Cassandra_Cain/af302703.jpg

Corsair - can you guess what ride that is ? :)

[SadieKate]

Plus you have the option of having your proposed route follow the road exactly - useful for really curvy routes.

Hmm, see the July 2 response on this thread. If this is true and this is what toporoute is doing, what will happen when they are forced to turn off that feature?

http://groups.google.com/group/RouteSlip/browse_thread/thread/189002dbf06b4c9b/ee5a426e318b92bd#ee5a426e318b92bd

[CorsairMac]

Corsair - can you guess what ride that is ? :)

I'm guessing one of the fingers - or the crest?

[Cassandra_Cain]

Corsair - I'm not really sure what will happen with the 'follow road' approach. Quite honestly the main attraction for me is the elevation/distance profile. I like comparing grades as well as knowing them. For instance, it was cool to see we have some over 20% grade roudes up in the foothills - no wonder it was so steep riding there :)

About the ride - actually you've done part of it....that graph is from tramway (on i-25) to the La Luz Trailhead. I might do it this weekend, though the road to the trailhead is kind of bumpy and at times too crowded for my taste.

[TsPoet]

ok - either I'm missing something or it doesn't like my system either: I'm trying to create a route of my daily commute and when I click on create route all I get is a blue box??????


I'm really hoping this works coz I've got routes I really REALLy want to create for my century rides................

Corsair,
I had the same problem, I determined it didn't like my city. Although I'd have a hard time thinking it doesn't know Albuquerque :eek: . Anyway, I put in an alternative zip code and it started working for me. It needs a valid zip to find the initial map to start you on, I think.

[CorsairMac]

nope - V had the answer, apparently Netscape is a Mozilla browser and Routeslip doesn't like Mozilla.


and Toporoute doesn't show the bike paths so I can't map a route using that one either.


:( :( :( :( :(

[Veronica]

To see a route SK sent me, I just switched browsers and used IE.

Okay, so thinking about reading comprehension here. Can you imagine someone who didn't have the background knowledge trying to make sense out of my first sentence?

V.

[SadieKate]

I'd like to know if anyone is mapping routes on any of the internet tools and getting climbing totals comparable to the results from their Polar, Ciclosport, Vetta, Garmin, whatever.

So far, everything I've experienced and read is that the totals are much higher than actual, that the altimeters on the cyclocomputers are more accurate.

[Cassandra_Cain]

I'd like to know if anyone is mapping routes on any of the internet tools and getting climbing totals comparable to the results from their Polar, Ciclosport, Vetta, Garmin, whatever.

So far, everything I've experienced and read is that the totals are much higher than actual, that the altimeters on the cyclocomputers are more accurate.

Sadie - I'd be really curious about this also. Virtually my entire focus for training rides is elevation & climbing, so it is important. Unfortunately all I can contribute is speculation since I don't have an altimeter.

[HillSlugger]

One thing though is that it seems to over estimate the total climbing. I had a very short ride that came out high but I finally put it to the test this last weekend with a longer route. Routeslip said 4,134 ft for the route below but my Polar said 3,395. Pretty significant variance.

The way routeslip works is that every time you add it point it determines its altitude and then compares it to the last point looking for a gain. Since it doesn't know anything about what happened inbetween these points it should underestimate both climbing and distance. I don't have any way to check my real climbing but I know my actual miles are always higher than what routeslip says. These underestimates should be greater for routes with many short altitude changes as compared to routes with long sustained climbs since your point picking will rarely hit the actual peaks.

Regardless of underestimates, if you do similar point picking (distance between points) for two routes you should get results that can be compared relatively.

[SadieKate]

I wonder if it has to do with the number of way points you pick. Since routeslip doesn't snap to the roads, I have to put in a lot of points for winding rural roads. This may be why I get the consistent overestimates.

I'm doing a longer version of the above route tomorrow. We'll see what happens.

[SadieKate]

Is it any wonder you don't know what to list as actual elevation?
Check out these two routes. I've ridden both. In actuality, Around the Mountain (ATM) has less climbing than the Dam Corners Route (DC) because the routes are the same except for one extra climb on the later. Veronica recorded from her Polar that ATM (routeslip created by someone else) had 2,720' climbing. Routeslip calculated 3,663'. The DC route with my newly added climb of Cantelow is 3,457' as recorded by my Ciclosport, but routeslip says 2,899'.

I'd say take the climbing on any of these mapping tools as "guidelines only."

http://www.routeslip.com/routelist.php?city=Mankas%20Corner,%20CA