Google Maps Adds Elevation Profiles To Bike Routes • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Maps Adds Elevation Profiles To Bike Routes

#41

Post by krzyk » Mon, May 19, 2014, 6:09 AM UTC

krzyk wrote: post #40

Sprint wrote: post #14

Heh, Google is catching up. I want to highly recommend https://www.komoot.de/plan for hike or bike planning. It's fundamentally based on OSM and very very nice.

Does it have English version? My German is not so good.

Replying to myself, yes it does, just had to add hl=en to the url: https://www.komoot.de/plan?hl=en

Re: Google Maps Adds Elevation Profiles To Bike Routes

#42

Post by liotier » Mon, May 19, 2014, 8:21 AM UTC

maxerickson wrote: post #23

daleharvey wrote: post #17

As someone who really enjoys cycling I have been surprised at how bad mapping and routing applications are, google maps have large portions of the world that are unavailable offline, its impossible (or hard to find out how_ to save routes offline, regularly sends me down dual carriageways and motorways. Open cycle routes loses your position every time you rotate the device and generally lacks quality. Am I missing so…

Try Komoot: https://www.komoot.de/plan (I've never used the app, just pointing you at the router)

And the router is good - in Europe at least, where Openstreetmap data is excellent !

Re: Google Maps Adds Elevation Profiles To Bike Routes

#43

Post by Doctor_Fegg » Mon, May 19, 2014, 8:22 AM UTC

Brakenshire wrote: post #28

Sprint wrote: post #14

Heh, Google is catching up. I want to highly recommend https://www.komoot.de/plan for hike or bike planning. It's fundamentally based on OSM and very very nice.

Google simply doesn't have the data in the UK, it has probably a tenth of the footpath and cyclepath routes compared to OSM, let alone all the information about surfaces, unofficial paths etc. Share the recommendation for komoot, although it's quite new, and a bit buggy. OSMAnd is also useful, not so polished, but you get a lot of power over the way you use the map, for instance searching for attractions, pubs, cycle…

Also in the UK: http://cycle.travel/map (disclaimer - my site)

Re: Google Maps Adds Elevation Profiles To Bike Routes

#44

Post by bainsfather » Mon, May 19, 2014, 8:31 AM UTC

Sprint wrote: post #14

Heh, Google is catching up. I want to highly recommend https://www.komoot.de/plan for hike or bike planning. It's fundamentally based on OSM and very very nice.

Just tried it out. Doesn't let me walk along main roads (in the UK), which produces some very strange walking routes :/

It looks nice, but still needs some polish before it's usable for me.

Re: Google Maps Adds Elevation Profiles To Bike Routes

#45

Post by stinos » Mon, May 19, 2014, 9:13 AM UTC

Needs some tuning of the mostly flat definition. When a route contains roads where you're looking at several 100s of meters > 10%, it is not considered mostly flat by the average cyclist. On the contrary.

Re: Google Maps Adds Elevation Profiles To Bike Routes

#46

Post by Digit-Al » Mon, May 19, 2014, 9:31 AM UTC

bainsfather wrote: post #44

Sprint wrote: post #14

Heh, Google is catching up. I want to highly recommend https://www.komoot.de/plan for hike or bike planning. It's fundamentally based on OSM and very very nice.

Just tried it out. Doesn't let me walk along main roads (in the UK), which produces some very strange walking routes :/ It looks nice, but still needs some polish before it's usable for me.

http://transportdirect.info has had gradient profiles in its cycle planner for years. I should know, I was involved in writing it (the gradient profiler). The gradients come from official OS data. It is somewhat slower than Google to calculate routes, but for my money has slightly clearer instructions and seems to make better use of cycle paths.

Re: Google Maps Adds Elevation Profiles To Bike Routes

#47

Post by bsimpson » Mon, May 19, 2014, 3:28 PM UTC

Sprint wrote: post #14

Heh, Google is catching up. I want to highly recommend https://www.komoot.de/plan for hike or bike planning. It's fundamentally based on OSM and very very nice.

Sometimes I've heard people bitch about the US-centricness of the Internet and how it can be difficult to enter structured data (like phone numbers or addresses) in a format that isn't compatible with US standards.

It's interesting to see that problem from the other direction. That site is useless for me because it can't easily decode US addresses.