best route planning sites?

willhub wrote:

Hi.

Soemeone in my club asked me that maybe I should have a go at planning a 90-110mile route, but I dont have the best knowledge and just wondering if there is any good sites for route planning? I know bikely is sort of ok but I need something that points out hills and shows heights and everything.

Thanks
Will.

I use www.viamichelin.com to map out a route' in the flat' to get the distance sorted then copy it into www.mapmyride.com to get a gradient profile.

Try it and see...

I find maps much easier to use and handle when planning tours. The best option for you is to get an Ordnance Survey 1:50 000 map of the area you are planning to cycle in. You can normally get these through your local reference library on loan.

The Ordnance Survey website (as well as a lot of others) cover the whole country with a range of maps at different scales or zoom, but they only show a small area, which makes it difficult to get an overview. You can use a road atlas to plot the main towns and villages you want to pass through and check out the detail on the OS or Multimap website (ie spot heights and contours for gradients as well as lot of other information).

The other problem is that they won't work out a mileage except between two points, but you can plot that on any web route planner. The multimap site uses OS maps plus you get the aerial and the bird's eye views (mainly urban areas).

Ordnance survey
http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/

Multimap
http://www.multimap.com/