thuna72

Hi all

I'm have tried to figure out the expected elevation gains of a tour I'm planning with Google Earth. However, in the elevation profiles the indicated height gains rise immensely (from 2300m to 10'000m) as I zoom in the route. Any tipps how I can make this work? Or any other programs that yield better results?

Thanks for helping a beginner!

osco53

Strava ?

It's free version is pretty good,, premium Is I think $5 a month..

FrozenK

The elevation profile on Google Earth should have the elevation gain/loss on it. Top of the graph if I remember correctly. It may be only on the pro version though.

Otherwise try Ride with GPS or Map My Ride. Both of them will allow you to create a route and then show length, how many Meyers you'll climb, etc...

Strava also has a route creator function, buy I've never used it.

rm -rf

Planning a bike route? I only use google maps for a quick check of distances. It's not good at all at picking routes. Google Earth is good for getting an overview of the area's geography.

Strava Route Builder
The new Strava Route Builder has usually made very good choices on routes. It uses the Strava Heat Map data to pick roads that are popular with riders, avoiding the more direct main highways. ( It sometimes doesn't know that a popular road is unpaved, though.)

I can click a starting and ending town more 100 miles apart, and even on that long distance it does a good job. I can drag a point from the route line to a new location and it'll reroute the ride.

See more details on the Route Builder in this thread post.

ridewithgps
I really like ridewithgps.com. You can sign up for a free account and start mapping. Very short but steep hills can sometimes show as moderate climbs, but it's pretty accurate on climbs in general.

You can drag to select a hill on it's red elevation graph, and click the Metrics tab at the right to see all the climb statistics--average and max grade, elevation gain and loss, and mileage.

See this 2012 post on using ridewithgps.

Metrics on a climb example:

CliffordK

It has been some time since Google Earth has installed/ran properly on my computer.

However, there is a measuring function. Does that just give you linear miles?

I think it also gives you the coordinates/elevation under your cursor. So it would be simple math to snag the start elevation and subtract from the destination elevation.

Darth Lefty 

Google Maps (not Earth) will do it on Android... but not iOS.