Path Profiler app

Ever thought how handy it'd be if you could have one of those route profiles like you get to show the climbs, altitudes and descents on each stage of a bike race? Well, you can provided you have the relevant Ordnance Survey map, a pencil and the know-how.

But what if you haven't got any of those or are riding further afield, perhaps somewhere where OS maps aren't available, such as Foreign? The answer is here - a very useful little application that uses Google Maps, allowing you to select a start, several checkpoints and a finish, and then - as if by magic but probably actually using algorithms or sumfink, draws the desired profile for you. What's more, you can have it in Imperial or metric too. This can then be used alongside a gradient calculator, such as the one here.

Find it here. 

The page is ugly, but it works and that's what matters!

Example: Cambridge - Haverhill - Great Thurlow - Bury St. Edmunds - Newmarket - Cambridge, 100km following the A roads. (Click to see it full-size, which makes it look a lot better)

Biking in the Peak Distict - for cheats

Fancy a cycling holiday in Derbyshire's Peak District? Of course you do, it's one of the UK's best cycling destinations with fascinating places such as Matlock, Arbor Low, Buxton and - best of all - all the Bakewell tarts you can shove down your craving gob.

Arbor Low. Spent an interesting night up there courtesy of the old psilocybe semilanceatas  back when I was a teenager.

Don't fancy the having-to-pedal bit? Well, perhaps cycling holidays aren't really for you, then. However, help is at hand - you can now hire an electric bike from the Electric Bicycle Network and use it to transport you about the National Park. It'd be wrong of us to accuse anyone who thinks this is a good idea of being lazy, though many of those who take advantage of the scheme will be just that, because electric bikes are an ideal option for the elderly and those with reduced mobility. And whichever way you look at it, they're better than the cars which choke the narrow lanes both here and in our other National Parks all summer long.

The Independent (rapidly becoming the daily for the cyclist) has all the info.