Cycling apps

[ozboz]

Hiya, I’ve got two apps to plan routes, they are both accurate with distance but elevation is way different , City cyclist says 1598 ft, CycleMaps says just about 600ft , I will endeavour to plot the rotes to try and find where the routes may differ , any pointers to a better app to plan my rides ?

 

[vickster]

Ridewithgps ?

 

[Milkfloat]

You won't find a better app if you are looking at purely elevation. Both the elevations are right and wrong at the same time. You need to pick an app (or dataset) and stick with it learning what the numbers mean to you. If the actual routes are different then again, there is no right and wrong, simply personal preference.

 

[graham bowers]

Hiya, I’ve got two apps to plan routes, they are both accurate with distance but elevation is way different , City cyclist says 1598 ft, CycleMaps says just about 600ft , I will endeavour to plot the rotes to try and find where the routes may differ , any pointers to a better app to plan my rides ?

Depends what better means to you.
Most of my rides are planned on cycle.travel as it's optimised to route you on quiet roads, which is what suits me. There has been some discussion in the forum on cycle.travel about differences in elevation when using different planners. You may find that helpful.

 

[steveindenmark]

Getting elevation spot on is difficult. I have found there is not a lot of difference between apps. You can always take an average between the apps.

 

[Dogtrousers]

You won't find a better app if you are looking at purely elevation. Both the elevations are right and wrong at the same time. You need to pick an app (or dataset) and stick with it learning what the numbers mean to you. If the actual routes are different then again, there is no right and wrong, simply personal preference.

This!!

 

[Dogtrousers]

Getting elevation spot on is difficult. I have found there is not a lot of difference between apps. You can always take an average between the apps.

How do you define "spot on"? How can you measure it?

 

[MontyVeda]

How do you define "spot on"? How can you measure it?

I tried to measure elevation accuracy by doing a long ride that included 8 miles of canal tow path...
[red line = elevation - blue line = speed]

....the tow path section is between the two purple lines. I gave up expecting any accuracy after this.

 

[ozboz]

Thanks for replies , looks like cycle maps and cycle travel are in the same ball park , 600 ft at the high spot on the route , so city cyclist app is a bit off the mark , so I’ll go with one of the two, if they’re wrong I’ll just have to ‘Bish Bosh ! ‘ up the hill !

 

[Levo-Lon]

How do you define "spot on"? How can you measure it?

You need to ask a builder or paving specialists... Like me..
Everything we do is Spot on

 

[Dogtrousers]

You need to ask a builder or paving specialists... Like me..
Everything we do is Spot on

Builders??

I'll make an exception in your case. I'm sure your paving rocks.

 

[Mike_P]

It's not necessarily just the app but also the device seemingly as on Sunday using Strava my ride got around 70ft difference in height gained between that recorded off the phone and recorded from the Wahoo Elemnt Bolt.

 

[Dogtrousers]

It's not necessarily just the app but also the device seemingly as on Sunday using Strava my ride got around 70ft difference in height gained between that recorded off the phone and recorded from the Wahoo Elemnt Bolt.

Two different things.

Thing 1: Apps planning routes try to figure out how much elevation gain there will be by looking up the road elevations from some set of data or other. Planned routes disagree with each other.
Thing 2: GPS devices recording elevation aren't all that accurate and recorded tracks disagree with each other over elevation gained.

And yeah ... a bonus thing ... thing 3. Different websites take uploads of the same recorded track and apply different smoothing/correction algorithms (or ignore the GPS elevation altogether) and disagree with each other about the elevation gain during the ride.

And of course things 1, 2 and 3 never agree with each other either.