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jonny_eh
The web app was made by my wife while attending Hackbright Academy in SF. I'm really proud of how much she's progressed in such little time, so wanted to share what she made with everyone.

http://www.hackbrightacademy.com/

nedwin
Awesome. Just arrived from Melbourne and brought my bike with me - my poor legs will be very thankful.
6ren
It also works in Melbourne (just tested my daily ride) for when you get back.

NB: you can change the endpoints graphically. Though it's gotten caught up on an unnecessary roundabout, as if it were a way-point (even retracing the route to include it...).

ngoel36
Looks great! They should really make the fact that there's a $12,000 tuition a bit more prominent though.
tiredofcareer
It's on the FAQ and, without saying the exact price, is discussed on the application. It's an education program, so I don't think a "Pricing" tab would fit as well (it'd feel a bit cheap, like Phoenix College).

I personally think it's fine.

ngoel36
I should not have to dig around the FAQ to find out it costs $12k, that's a large sum of money to consider spending before jumping into the class. It should, at the very very least be on the application, if not on the front page.

The price (at least for me) was not a _frequently asked_ question, but rather the _very first_ question I thought of asking.

throw_away
Works for Seattle, as well. Thanks!
dotcoma
What did you mean? Didn't work for me. I need this to avoid hills when running in Barcelona :)
fern
Same problem but in Brazil. Now this one is a great idea.
seanmcdirmid
Seems to have problems in 3D Lausanne Switzerland.
koenigdavidmj
You know a place is hilly when its name is "3-D".
stevejalim
Wow. That looks great. We need one of these (well, more than one!) in the UK.
artsrc
Works in Sydney, Australia
tim_hutton
Request: tell me the longest route that is downhill all the way.
lnanek2
Haha, we could really use this sort of custom routing in NJ for finding the route using the fewest roads. If I use Google Maps to go to the local mall, Costco, etc. it ends up using about 16 small side roads, alternating left and right turns every block. Takes forever. Meanwhile, if you know what you are doing you can make it there in 3 roads, one a major highway, which is much faster than any of the side roads Google Maps loves so much. Just getting rid of all the turns helps immensely.
yaliceme
Thanks for this! Cycling is my preferred way to commute, so I expect this to come in handy. I just confirmed that my usual work->home route is in fact the flattest.
pkill17
The dots used for showing the difficulty can be dragged when altering the route. Other than minor finicky things like that, it seems to be a neat idea. Cool work!
stevewilhelm
You might want to remove your Google API key from the Github Repo.
jonny_eh
Thanks but no need to worry, it's a browser API key.
idupree
I've been using Marble ( http://marble.kde.org/ ) to show me elevation profiles of routes I bicycle. This site is pretty cool too! (This site works everywhere there's map data, not just SF.)
dlitwak
This is great. I bike to work and I had kind of intuitively figured this out after a month, but pretty cool nonetheless!
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esperluette
So cool! I've been waiting for a bunch of bike-apps-in-progress to come to fruition (415bike, I'm looking at you: https://github.com/415bike) but now the wait is made much easier with this!
juskrey
Could I please have the most hilly option for my legs?
pauljburke
I was just thinking I know quite a few runners that would want this option.
jonny_eh
Just find some red and black routes, it should just work.
malbs
Yeah I'm the same, I look for the steepest rides, I look at my commute home as part work out. Still, no matter which way I take, I still have to climb ~500ft
Pirate-of-SV
Something doing the opposite would be cool. I'm training on my bike in SF and the hills are the best.
lubujackson
Might as well make a slider for how far you'll go out of the way/into the way for hills.
jonny_eh
That's what's great about this, it just shows you the data, you can optimize the route yourself how you'd like it.
mrmagooey
And if you monetise the hills option you could quote Jens Voight: "I get paid to hurt other people - how cool is that?"
stevewilhelm
The length of the route is affecting the slope of each segment.

For example, Bolinas, CA to Vacaville, CA has steeper segments than the Bolinas, CA to Dixon, CA even though they take the exact same route out of Marin and Sonoma.

The extreme example, Bolinas, CA to Boston, MA never gets above a four percent slope.

jonny_eh
That's due to limits of the Google Elevation API, it only allows a certain number of samples to be fetched at a time. The app's only meant for use over short distances, like around a city.
mtp0101
Very cool! Have always thought that Google Maps needs this feature!
jonny_eh
My wife (the creator of this app) happened to showed it to someone from Google Maps today. It was demo day at the school she's attending and they were there.
jayunit
Awesome! Boy, this graph highlights why my evening commute (SoMa to Noe) is killer in comparison to the morning commute.

PS My wife is in Hackbright as well, it is an exciting time in the program (for other HNers, it's the last week of the current cohort). I heard about FlattestRoute a few weeks back, it looks really great!

willthames
If I plot a route from Hyde and Bay to 6th and Mission, it routes me over Nob Hill. If I change it two streets to 4th and Mission, it routes me around the Embarcadero, which is much flatter. Is there a reason it takes the more direct (less flat) route in the first instance?

Having played around, the route given seems to vary slightly as I move an endpoint slightly at either end and then massively recalculate - perhaps it caches certain segments and favours those?

Just curious really, it's a cool idea!

voltagex_
Hi, I'm a wheelchair user in Australia. Would be very very interested in adapting your app. Please get in touch!
beilabs
Cool app, just a few points.

Love the elevation charts, really well done.

One route indicated the lane cove tunnel in Sydney, a place where I can't run or cycle, I could get squished.

Would be interesting to use long/lat co-ordinates, could be really great for bushwalkers and their specific location.

Combine this with something like zombie-run, have the zombies attack at the bottom of a hill/vice versa, you could have a hit with the hard core running community.

Would be nice to see the alternative routes, not just the flattest, but maybe challenging ones, best rated.

But what you've done in a few weeks is still awesome. Well done.

No1
Pretty interesting, looks like Google Elevation API misses some tunnels though (looking at a route that should go through Broadway tunnel right now). Tunnels are key for getting the Flattest Route™.
denzil_correa
Looks interesting - wouldn't it lead to congestion though?
dannowatts
this really is absolutely awesome. will be putting it to good use very soon :)
mdturnerphys
I'd been thinking about making something like this for a while (I'm in Seattle). Glad that someone with more time and skills than me got it put together.

What's the basic idea behind the optimization algorithm?