Getting and Sharing 3D Profile Images

Hopefully lots of you will have seen the 3D profile images being showcased on Eurosport throughout the Tour de France coverage this year. I have now massively improved the way you can get hold of your own 3D profile images of rides, runs or segments to make it much easier for you (as well as me) to attach to your Strava activities or share on social media from your phone, tablet or PC/Mac.

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The Climbs of the Critérium du Dauphiné 2014

Montée de Finhaut-ÉmossonOne of my favourite races of the Pro Cycling calendar, the Critérium du Dauphiné.  Named after the Dauphiné province in south-eastern France’s high mountains this race is always packed with the top Tour de France contenders performing their last major competition prior to the Grand Depart. Next time we’ll see this top class field it will be on the streets of Yorkshire!  Taking in many of the famous climbs of the Alps with 3 mountain top finishes this year’s race will be a great warm up for the spectators as well as the riders.

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Le Cote de Jenkin Road

Jenkin Road - taken by James AllenJenkin Road is the final climb on stage 2 of the 2014 Tour de France. Its position on the route, only minutes from finish in Sheffield, is crucial and is likely to influence the final outcome. Jenkin is only short but it is steep enough to be a significant challenge to the riders of Le Tour, especially as it comes after 195 hilly kilometres.

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3D Strava/Garmin Connect/Ride With GPS Courses, Activities, Routes and Segments

3D BookmarkletBack in July I had my first experience with bookmarklets when playing with Marc Durdin’s excellent bit of code that provides his funky elevation profiles for Activities and Segments right there, in amongst Strava’s own page contents.  I might have been a bit naive but I just didn’t realise that this thing was so easy to do, so time for a quick play and see what I could come up with.  First off I wanted to get an interactive 3D view of the new Strava Routes, the other thing that sprung to mind was to see if I could swap out the Google Maps view for the more detailed (at least here in the UK) Open Street/Cycle Maps which I’ll go into in my next blog post.

Update: unfortunately this approach to getting data for the 3D viewer is remarkably unstable due to the ever changing code at each of the sites mentioned above. Currently I think all of the sites listed have changed their code sufficiently for my code to no longer work and I’m not going to attempt to maintain it.  Instead I’ve added a GPX import option on the 3D routes page but it does rely on the GPX file including elevation data. The GPX export from Strava doesn’t so that won’t work so the best site I’ve found so far to create your GPX files is Ride With GPS. The elevation data isn’t the best though so don’t expect very good profiles (Garmin Connect appears to have the best elevation data right now but there is no GPX export!). Of course if you’ve ridden the route then just view your activity on VeloViewer and you’ll see a 3D view there.

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Interactive 3D Elevation Profiles

Alpe d'Huez 3D ProfileThis is something I’d been wanting to do for ages and I’ve even surprised myself with how well they’ve turned out! The majority of elevation profiles you see around the cycling world look like they were drawn in the late 1990’s so it was time to bring them up to date and make the most of the latest technologies to allow you to interact with them.

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The Climbs of Stage 2 of the 2014 Tour de France – Part 2

Tour de France 2014 Stage 2 Route Map Second HalfIn a previous post I covered the climbs of the first half of stage 2 of the 2014 Tour de France on its way from York to Sheffield (also available is the climbs of stage 1). This post will cover the remaining climbs of the stage that could well be providing a safe pairs of shoulders for both the Yellow and Polka Dot Jerseys for a good number of days. Holme Moss is certainly the biggest climb of the day but the many small and steep climbs (and slippery, twisty descents) on the run-in to Sheffield are more likely to cause the upsets and there is a real sting in the tail with up to a 33% gradient on Jenkin Road just a few km from the line. Tom Boonen and Matt Goss both crashed fairly badly in this area during the 2006 Tour of Britain but hopefully those won’t be the kind of headlines of the day.

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The Climbs of Stage 2 of the 2014 Tour de France – Part 1

Tour de France 2014 Stage 2 Route MapStage 1 may well have been one for the sprinters but stage 2 is being heralded as a proper, Yorkshire, Northern Classic of a stage and that means plenty of climbs. The route takes in almost 4000m of climbing along its 208km starting in North Yorkshire, passing through West Yorkshire, dipping its toe ever so slightly into Derbyshire before the grand finale in South Yorkshire. There are so many climbs that I’m splitting them up over 2 blog posts! In this post we’ll cover the route from the start at York Racecourse up to the climb of Cragg Vale and here you will find Part 2 with all the remaining climbs all the way to Sheffield.

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The Climbs and Finish of Stage 1 of the 2014 Tour de France

Tour de France 2014 Stage 1 Route MapStage 1 of the 2014 Tour de France will travel from Leeds Town Hall to the spa town (and home of Yorkshire Tea) of Harrogate in just over 200 km (around 2800 m of climbing) and a sprint finish (and a British Yellow Jersey?) is anticipated. But this stage is by no means flat and if you are planning on riding the stage then you might be interested in knowing what you are letting yourself in for.

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Holme Moss Climb (Tour de France Stage 2, 2014)

Holme MossHolme Moss is a bit of a classic around these parts, particularly because it usually requires a fairly long loop and another major climb to get back home again, but also because it is one of the highest roads in the area and at 524m will be the highest 2nd highest (Buttertubs Pass is 526m!) point visited by the 2014 Tour de France during its stay in England. Never ridiculously steep, the climb puts its efforts into psyching you out by laying out the snaking finale in front of you with the majority of the climb still remaining. The Mont Ventoux’esque transmitter tower that sits at the summit of the climb is so unmistakably apparent it is impossible ignore what’s in store.

(photo: @paterson_alan)

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Buttertubs Pass from Hawes (Tour de France Stage 1, 2014)

Buttertubs Descent

The Buttertubs Pass from Hawes in North Yorkshire will be one of the first climbs taken in by the 2014 Tour de France in the heart of the Yorkshire Dales National Park. I’m not going to attempt to regale you with tales of my epic ascent of the climb as I can only remember about 25 metres of it (and I don’t think I’ve ever regaled anything very well) so I’ll stick to what I know and provide the cold, hard stats!

Photo: Kreuzschnabel/Wikimedia Commons, License

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