Determine Elevation Profile on Internet???

[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:



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/Route...5a426e318b92bd

[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 . 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.