My solution to the problem is to grab my phone, record my biking trajectory with sports tracker (no data plan is needed) and get an estimation of the elevation (total number of meters uphill, and total number of meters downhill) with the help of GPS. For this you'll have to have:
- a smart phone with a gps (android, apple ios, nokia, or microsoft phone)
- create a free account on www.sports-tracker.com (no adds, spam, etc)
- install the app on your phone (with e.g., wifi)
- climb on the bike, start gps, start the app, start recording your workout
- jump off the bike, stop the workout, save and sync the workout. In case you have a data plan, it will be uploaded on the server. In case you are not - you'll need to sync the workout when you'll have the wifi connection
- open the workout in the web site of the sports tracker, check the accumulated downhill and uphill values and the elevation graph
I am afraid that you cannot see the elevation in the phone itself with the help of sports-tracker. It is computed after you upload your trajectory to their server.
Estimating the elevation is a tricky problem and may be quite inaccurate (in contrast to lat/lon estimation of the GPS coordinates). In case you need something a lot more precise, you may export your path in sports tracker as gmx track, import that into google maps and get a bit better estimate.
I am afraid that you cannot see the elevation in the phone itself with the help of sports-tracker. It is computed after you upload your trajectory to their server.
If you ever plan to move to Europe/Germany then you could use open route service developed by some Academic institution (but which one?), save your trajectory as gmx file, and get the elevation visualized with the help of e.g. GPS Visualizer. See screenshorts below.
Hope you find the post useful.
