The Ride North Wales website is an example of the Web Publishing Portal’s bespoke service for designing and building websites and CMS using Open Source web technologies combined with in-house coding and database skills. The RNW website provides road and mountain cyclists with a range of interactive content including 2D and 3D mapping, route cards, news and cycle-friendly accommodation for a one-stop shop user experience. WPP partners Blue Fox Technology and Artychoke collaborated on designing and building the solution for the project.
The Ride North Wales website helps visitors to realise the unique attractions of road cycling and mountain biking in Wales. More than this it also offers content to help them plan their visit to the area whether coming for a day, a weekend or a week. Each route is graded for difficulty and includes a detailed route map, route card and profile and, in some cases, a 3D fly-through of the route to highlight the terrain and climb that will be experienced by the cyclist.
Integrated with the public website is a custom-built CMS that allows non-technical staff in Environmental Services to maintain content within the website, including the creation of new route maps. Furthermore local businesses wanting to promote their cyclist-friendly credentials can request that their details be included on the website and then enter submit those details via their own securer area in the CMS for approval and publication by the relevant officer.
The CMS’s mapping component – provided by OpusMap – has been extended to include a walking route and mapping section for a separate website built by another company but maintained by the same team that look after RNW.
Key project features
designed to appeal to both the keen cyclist and to entice visitors looking for activity-based experiences
custom-built website and CMS, created with Open Source web technologies combined with in-house coding that is used by non-technical staff
pre-built features such as interactive mapping and many CMS functions were easily integrated into the turnkey solution to meet budget
each route map either digitised in GIS or edited from GPS data to accurately fit both Ordnance Survey mapping and Apple maps (for iPhone app: see here)
This system has changed our lives at Ride North Wales HQ! In Wales, we work bilingually. We publish everything in Welsh and English, so all our web pages need to be bilingual. So it is refreshing to use a system, which makes updating things in both languages so easy.
