around Cambridge, UK
Cambridgeshire is very
flat, so none of these rides require any superhuman ability. And most
of the country roads you’ll be cycling along, are
well-provisioned with pubs in case any need for refreshment should
arise. Particularly good pubs for lunch are marked on the maps.
Like Google Maps itself,
these maps don't, at time of writing, work in Konqueror, or if you
have Javascript (ECMAScript) turned off. They should work in Firefox,
Galeon, Mozilla, or MSIE.
| 45 miles | Ely |
| 40 miles | Gransdens & Eversdens |
| 20 miles | Northern Villages via Milton, Madingley |
| 45 miles | Saffron Walden & Great Chishill |
How it’s done
The routes aren’t derived from Google Maps’ own directions-finding service; Google doesn’t let that information out, and anyway they’re targetting car-drivers, and all these rides use at least one place cars can’t go. So the routes are captured using Greg Stoll’s trick: double-click on each point on the route one by one, and for each one, right-click on “Link to this page” and choose “Copy link location&rdquo, then paste that location into a text file. You end up with a text file full of lines like this, each denoting one point on the route:http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?ll=52.210710,0.115056&spn=0.021085,0.027030&hl=en
(that one’s Bridge Street crossroads). Places of Use to Bicyclists are marked with the acronym "pub":
pub http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?ll=52.212386,0.128113&spn=0.004621,0.006758&t=k&hl=en Fort St George
Then the text file is processed by some sed magic to produce an XML
file which is read by the Javascript
and sent to Google Maps.
If you want to do
something similar yourself, you’re welcome to copy any and all
of what I’ve done -- but you’ll need to sign up for your
own Google Maps key, as each one only works in the same directory on
the same server that it was created for.
All Rites Reversed -- Copy
What You Like