mev

Google Maps Now Show Elevation Statistics For Bikers : News : Headlines & Global News

It doesn't quite work in my configuration, but curious if someone else sees this work. I tried Idaho Springs, CO to top of Mount Evans so there should be a hill in there somewhere.

Overall, I know mapmyride.com and others already show elevation profiles, but having this in Google Maps could also be a plus. For touring I typically use Google Maps asking for an Auto route but option for "Avoid Highways", but seeing elevation stats/profiles in bicycle mode would be interesting too.

andrewclaus

That's interesting. But it doesn't work for me either.

I've long noticed, for a couple of years at least, that Google Maps accounts for elevation in its time estimate. Try reversing direction on the Mt Evans climb and see the time difference! It would be great to see profiles.

Tourist in MSN

I have not tried to use Google Maps for elevation data but I have used Google Earth for elevation profiles in the past. Sometimes the data was noisy and a few times it had big errors.

For example, I looked at one route that was on a road that was next to a river at the base of a tall bluff. The river was nearly horizontal so the road elevation varied only slightly because the road was close to the shoreline. Yet sometimes Google Earth would suddenly plot the elevation at the top of the bluff instead of the bottom along the road. The error was probably lack of precision in their topographic data and/or lack of accuracy on the road location.

I used my own GPS data in Google Earth to plot an elevation profile for Going to the Sun Road, it had lots of up and down noise in the plot where the road had a nearly constant uphill grade. I suspect the problem was that Google Earth was thinking I had left the road and plotted the elevation for land surfaces adjacent to the road. But when I plotted the data in Mapsource to create an elevation profile, it showed the constant grade very well.

So, don't get your hopes too high for a perfect result in areas where the elevation of the ground surface varies quite a bit.

gregf83 

Works for me. I think you just need to make sure you select bicycling as the transportation mode.

spinnaker

I just notice this. Have not looked at it in detail yet. What is cool is it seems to be giving you more alternate routes too. You have to manually compare the routes. It would be nice if it tagged them somehow with least, climb, least distance, least traffic etc.

mev

Ok, I can see it on a Windows system with Chrome browser, but not on Linux system with Chrome browser. I probably have some other parameters different and am defaulting to an older version of Google Maps when I look from Linux.

dorkypants

It only works for cycling directions in the new Google Maps, the one where the map takes the entire width of the browser window, and turn-by-turn directions appear in a floating dropdown pane instead of in a collapsible sidebar. I get it in Chrome 34 and Opera 21, but not in Safari 5 (OS X 10.6). It's not as detailed as the elevation profile in RideWithGPS but is OK for imparting a flavor of how hilly a route may be.

Northwestrider

Thanks, that was my problem, I've got it now, it works fine with the new google map, as you said.