Welcome to bikehike.co.uk

This website is intended for anyone wishing to create or view routes on either the Google maps or the Ordnance Survey maps. Since the Ordnance Survey maps are limited to the United Kingdom, this site is primarily intended for UK users. Non-UK users may also find it useful operating in single map mode.

The great advantage of the Ordnance Survey maps (particularly the Landranger series) is the huge amount of detail they contain. Therefore mountain bikers and hikers can now create routes along byways, bridleways and footpaths. Roadies may also find it useful to see the added level of detail contained on the OS maps.

Features:

• Simultaneous course creation on Google and Ordnance Survey maps.
• Upload and download of routes to and from GPS units (GPX, TCX and TRL formats).
• Interactive elevation profile - click on the elevation graph to see corresponding route point.
• Toggle between elevation and gradient view on elevation graph.
• UK postcode and place name search.
• Auto routing on the Google map - save your mouse clicks.
• Save your routes to the database to share with other users.
• Search the database for other user's routes.
• Add points of interest to routes e.g. pubs.
• Distance and elevation data continuously calculated for your route.
• Course editing facilities - including Google style route dragging .

To start creating or viewing courses on the maps go to the course creator page by clicking the course creator link above.

Performance tip: there's a lot of javascript code running on the course creator page - particularly as it has to maintain both the Google and OS maps as you create your route. You will find the performance of the site is much better on Firefox and Safari - particularly if you are using computationally intensive features like Drag Edit. If you're still using Internet Explorer 6 - then you really could do much better - for free.

Any issues, suggestions or other feedback, please contact me at:

Information:

• 24/6: Corrected vector rendering issue that was preventing the OS route from displaying in Firefox 3 and Safari browsers.

History:

• July 2008:  Updates
  • Added Register and Log on facility. If you are logged on when you save a route to the database, it will become your route. You can subsequently search for your routes - and then edit them and resave them. However, there is no compulsion to register - you can still use the site as before without being logged on.
    
    If you have previously created routes that you now want to be the owner of, please drop me an email with your user name and the ids of your routes and I will set it up.
  
  
• June 2008:  Updates
  • Added drag editing - including Google style route dragging. There's a couple of modes of operation and one potential pitfall - see help here.
  • Go to Start and Go to End buttons combined into a single button to make way for the Drag Edit Mode button.
  • Save to database revised such that multiple saves of the same route name in the same session will just update the route. Previously separate copies with the same name were saved.
  
  
• May 2008:  Updates
  • Added option to switch between elevation and gradient on the elevation graph.
  • Added vertical scrollbars to the elevation data and mapping controls windows.
  • Revised so that clicking on top of the path in the Google map now works as expected. Previously that click would be ignored.
  • Added a filter on the total ascent and descent calculations. These were previously over reporting.
  • Added elevation data repair script. This runs overnight and repairs any missing or corrupt elevation data - see FAQ item here.
  • Added route link to Find Route results window so you can retrieve the link for any route.
  • Added text file download option.
  
  
• April 2008:  Updates
  • Added support for uploading tracklog (trl) files. Only the XML tracklog files are supported - not the older binary format. Note - while developing the tracklog importer I found an issue with tracklog files that are converted to GPX using GPSBabel - see FAQ item here.
  
  
• 19th April 2008:  Bikehike.co.uk launched.
  • Tested on IE6, IE7 and Firefox running on a Windows PC. There were initially problems running on the Safari browser - these should be corrected now.