Cycling the Alps adds games, tours and much more

When we showed you the “Cycling the Alps” site last year, it was pretty neat. It had information and tours for hundreds of cycling routes in the Alps, and it was very well crafted.
They’ve just taken the site to the next level and it’s quite impressive now! When you click an area on the site, you’re now given as many as 12 options for things to do. Along with the standard “route” and “tour”, there are options to play games, explore in 3D in sort of a first-person shooter style as well as a few other goodies.

While you could start at their home page and choose a route, I’d advise you to start with the “Little Saint Bernard Pass“, as it features all of the available options.
Clicking the “Pac-Man Earth” icon will let you ride a bike on that path, with the code heavily borrowed from the popular “Monster Milktruck” demo. It’s certainly a fun way to try it route. Simply use your arrow keys to move around.
Clicking the “Earth with magnifying glass” icon you’ll get the “Explore in 3D” version of the map. Use the [A], [W], [S] and [D] keys to move around, and the arrow keys to change your view. You can use the [Page Up] and [Page Down] keys to fly in the air. If you explore “Grosse Scheidegg” you’ll even find a little GEB marker!

A few of the options, including the 3D Tours and the Profiles can now be embedded into your own website, and they’ve created a version of the site specifically for the Chrome web store, though I’m not sure it offers any major advantages.
All in all, they’ve made some very impressive improvements to the site, and they’re doing all they can to help you fully experience the Alps from the comfort of your home.

About Mickey Mellen

Mickey has been using Google Earth since it was released in 2005, and has created a variety of geo-related sites including Google Earth Hacks. He runs a web design firm in Marietta, GA, where he lives with his wife and two kids.

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