MapQuest for bike routes

[Ken Robb]

Last Sunday I met a guy studying what looked like MQ route sheets and maps. He was riding from Long Beach, CA. to San Diego. As I knew a better route which cuts through UCSD I gave him a quick guided tour of the neighborhood and recommended that he go up Washington to University Aves. instead of climbing Laurel St. to get to Balboa Park. He had a cool plan: his wife drove down w/daughter for a gymnastics meet, he rode a bit more than a one-way century. Strong rider on a carbon Fondriest w/10 spd DA. He was so peppy when I met him 95 miles into his ride he must be amazing (by my standards) when he's fresh.

Anyway, does anyone have a link to this kind of service: mapping bike routes?

[fiamme red]

http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/

[Ken Robb]

thanks-that was quick.

[Ozz]

This is more hiking and mountain bike stuff...

http://www.trails.com/

The owners of the website are friends of mine. He rides mountain bikes, but I like him anyway. :p

[gdw]

I'd recommend that you be cautious when using any of the commercial mapping products to plan cycling routes. The maps they use are excellent in some areas and weak in others. They sometimes show intersections instead of overpasses and underpasses and through streets which are actually deadend roads. The coverage is better in urban areas than rural.

[sjbraun]

This works well for my needs. Its perhaps best to map a route you've already ridden.

http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/

[DRZRM]

That software is so f***ing cool, I can't stand it. I've been mapping my runs and rides for hours. :beer:

Thanks guys, you learn something new everyday.

Zach

[xspace]

Am I doing something wrong? When I click out a route for a bike route, it draws straight lines (as the crow flies) between my points rather then routing them along roads. Of what use is this to laying out a bike route?

Hal

[hooverone]

http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/
Can someone please say how to use this site listed above?

[cycleman_21]

Can someone please say how to use this site listed above?


click on "usage instructions", I was lost there too :)


RC

[Kevin]

http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/

Outstanding site. Thanks.

Kevin

[justinf]

So this is some of the new mapping technology I keep hearing about. I read recently that in the near future this type of site will have a zoom layer that is satellite photographs. Thanks for the link, it's tons of fun.

[palincss]

I'd recommend that you be cautious when using any of the commercial mapping products to plan cycling routes. The maps they use are excellent in some areas and weak in others. They sometimes show intersections instead of overpasses and underpasses and through streets which are actually deadend roads. The coverage is better in urban areas than rural.

There's one other big problem: road names. In many cases the online map services have the roads indicated with street names, when all you will find for signage on the actual road is route numbers.

A couple of minor problems are: no indication of topography and no indication of road surface (or lack thereof).

[palincss]

Am I doing something wrong? When I click out a route for a bike route, it draws straight lines (as the crow flies) between my points rather then routing them along roads. Of what use is this to laying out a bike route?

Hal


Make your points closer together. If you make the points very very close you can follow the curves and mark distance very accurately.

[Cadence230]

A couple of minor problems are: no indication of topography and no indication of road surface (or lack thereof).
I downloaded Google Earth which is not to be confused with Google maps. You can drag the pointer over the roads/terrain and get elevation. You can also super impose the road numbers, i.e. US 65, over the satellite image. :)

[palincss]

I downloaded Google Earth which is not to be confused with Google maps. You can drag the pointer over the roads/terrain and get elevation. You can also super impose the road numbers, i.e. US 65, over the satellite image. :)

John Moore has mapped out the Deerfield Dirt Road Randonne route on Google Earth. This is about as spectacular an application of this technology as I could imagine. For those who haven't heard of it, the D2R2, which was first run last summer, is a 100mi and 100km route beginning in Deerfield MA that is almost entirely on dirt roads. It was very well received in the randonneuring
community. Here's their web site: http://www.deerfieldcycling.org
and here's a link to the web page providing photographs and a detailed description of the route: http://www.deerfieldcycling.org/detailed_description.htm


Here's John's message to the iBOB list providing links:
I've mapped out the entire Deerfield Dirt Road Randonnee on Google
Earth for anyone interested in checking on the terrain that was covered.
Don't have Google Earth software installed? The basic viewer is free
here: http://earth.google.com/ This is neat stuff for any map freak.

The following four URLs are for the four stages of the Deerfield
Dirt-Road Randonnee (D2R2) held August of 2005. Click on one of the
URLs and it should launch Google Earth and load a stage of the ride.
Then click the Play button (a standard right-pointing play arrow under
the Places panel on the left) and it will fly you along that stage of
the D2R2 with a birds eye view from 5000'. Be sure to check the Terrain
box on the control panel to get the 3D terrain
effect. Checking the Roads box will show you the road names.

Stage 1 -
http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/download.php?Number=175670

Stage 2 -
http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/download.php?Number=175671

Stage 3 -
http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/download.php?Number=175673

Stage 4 -
http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/download.php?Number=175676

[Ian]

Try Wayfaring (http://www.wayfaring.com). It's a lot like gmap-pedometer.com, but has added features for annotation, sharing and commenting.