I wonder what people think of this
new idea in terrain mapping for cyclists? My first thought was 'why not just map slope?' or show a conventional profile, but the idea has really grown on me. I like the simplicity of the design, and despite the minimalism, they are really quite informative.
In fact, I liked the idea so much, I decided to write something to produce them automatically from a GPS track. Unlike the originals, I haven't annotated these, nor included intersecting roads as I wanted to be able to automate the entire process. Below are some examples (clockwise from top left, and not to the same scale:
Fred Whitton,
Brian Chapman,
Brevet Cymru,
Transporter 200,
Rural South):
I think they work better when slightly larger. Below is the Fred Whitton taking all the main passes in the Lake District, all clearly visible as thicker lines:
I tried mapping slope in the same way, but these tend to be less informative and at the scale of a 200+km ride, show very little.
There is perhaps scope for labelling controls, or using colour to encode slope, but I am quite taken with the minimalist design.