More Ways to See Your Route

We've expanded the map layer options in PitStopper to give you more choices for visualizing your routes. You can now choose from eight different map styles, each suited to different planning needs.

New Layer Options

Hillshade (ESRI) - A grayscale terrain layer that uses shading to show elevation and slope. This is particularly useful for quickly identifying steep sections and understanding the general topography of an area without the visual complexity of a full map.

Terrain (MapTiler) - A beautifully colored elevation layer that uses graduated colors to represent altitude. Lower elevations appear in greens, transitioning through yellows and oranges to whites at the highest peaks. This gives an immediate visual sense of elevation across your entire route.

These join our existing options: Streets, Satellite, Topographic, Cycling, Outdoors, and Dark.

Faster, More Reliable Map Loading

Behind the scenes, we've made a significant infrastructure improvement. We now run our own tile caching server for the three most popular map layers: Streets, Topographic, and Cycling.

Why This Matters

Public tile servers like OpenStreetMap, OpenTopoMap, and CyclOSM provide an incredible free service to the mapping community. However, they have limited resources and serve millions of requests daily. By running our own caching layer:

• Reduced load on public servers - Once a tile is cached, subsequent requests don't hit the origin servers
• Potentially faster loading - Cached tiles are served from our infrastructure
• Better reliability - Less dependence on public server availability

Automatic Fallback

If our tile cache ever becomes unavailable, PitStopper automatically falls back to the public tile servers. You won't notice any interruption—just seamless map loading either way.

Try the New Layers

Next time you're planning a route, click the layer selector in the top-right corner of the map and try out Hillshade or Terrain. They're particularly useful for:

• Hillshade: Getting a quick sense of terrain difficulty without map clutter
• Terrain: Visualizing elevation patterns across large areas

Combined with our existing Topographic and 3D Map features, you now have more tools than ever to understand the landscape before your adventure begins.