I've been mapping my routes on bikely.com (can't get routeslip to work on my computer). I definitely consider the elevation calculations an estimate only. Since it's completely based on where you put your "clicks" on the map, there's really no way to know how accurate it is. I have one stretch of road that I've given up on...bikely tells me it has 350' elevation gain with steep ups and downs but I know for a fact that it's a flat stretch. Interestingly, this particular road is cut right into the side of a big hill. So I figure that the road is not mapped quite right and the bikely "clicks" are calculating either up the hill or down the hill from the road. I've tried over and over, but it always comes up with a bunch of hills where there really are none!

Since I don't have any other way to measure elevation, I'm happy with bikely's estimates for now. I feel like I'm getting a pretty accurate starting and ending elevation, so I know I'm at least doing that much climbing.