Google Earth is a fantastic downloadable application that allows you to explore the world from your own armchair. You can key in the name of a town or village in any country in the world, and the program will fly around a 3D image of the Earth and zoom in to show a high-resolution image of your chosen location.

I often include links to Google Earth datafiles in my cycle ride posts. Assuming you’ve already downloaded the program, clicking on these will show the actual route that I took, as logged by my cycle computer.

However, you can be even more cunning than this. Once Google Earth has loaded, you’ll see that the cycle ride appears in the list of “Temporary Places” on the left-hand panel of the program. If you click the little arrow next to the cycle ride, and then do the same next to the “Tracks” option that appears, you’ll see the name of the ride appear in pink. Click on this to select it, and then on the play icon just underneath and to the right. Google Earth will then ‘fly over’ the route, giving you an idea of the scenery that you will see if you follow the same route.