The Chainlink

Stolen from Bob Kastigar. Credit where credit's due.

Google Announces Google Biking Directions at the League of American
Bicyclists' 2010 National Bike Summit

This new feature includes: step-by-step bicycling directions; bike
trails outlined directly on the map; and a new "Bicycling" layer that
indicates bike trails, bike lanes, and bike-friendly roads. The
directions feature provides step-by-step, bike-specific routing
suggestions - similar to the directions provided by our driving,
walking, or public transit modes. Simply enter a start point and
destination and select "Bicycling" from the drop-down menu. You will
receive a route that is optimized for cycling, taking advantage of bike
trails, bike lanes, and bike-friendly streets and avoiding hilly terrain
whenever possible.

http://maps.google.com/

Click on "Get Directions" and select from drop-down list.

Click on "More..." box and check "Bicycling"

League of American Bicyclists Press Release
a href="http://www.bikeleague.org/blog/2010/03/national-bike-summit-2010-google-announces-bike-google-maps-at-summit-today/" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(7, 77, 143);">http://www.bikeleague.org/blog/2010/03/national-bike-summit-2010-google-announces-bike-google-maps-at-summit-today/>



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THANK GOD. If you use the walking feature, you'll get put on miles of gravel roads. Ask me how I know. Ha.
Did a quick check from Andersonville to Union Station. It sends me down the Lakefront path (not bad), end then down the Riverwalk (not bad either). It then dumps you onto Wacker Drive (WTH?)
It's cool but needs ironing. There is an option when you use it that says it's in Beta and you can report mistakes ;-)
OF all of the mapping functions I have used for cycling, I trust this the least of all. I would absolutely not trust it until it is ironed out a lot more for a route that was taking me into an area I didn't know that well.



It has continuously attempted to run me the wrong way down 1 way streets, into dead ends, and lots and lots of busy streets.

A much superior bike-friendly mapping feature can be found at

www.mapmyride.com


Obviously, Google is very good about responding to feedback, so comments and feedback will make this function better over time, but now, I would sooner look at a map than use this function.

Cheers - Lee
You're comparing apples to oranges. Google gives directions (good or bad), whereas mapmyride allows you to create a route.

I agree with your assessment of Google. Relentless innovation will ultimately make this a great app.

Lee Diamond said:
OF all of the mapping functions I have used for cycling, I trust this the least of all. I would absolutely not trust it until it is ironed out a lot more for a route that was taking me into an area I didn't know that well.

It has continuously attempted to run me the wrong way down 1 way streets, into dead ends, and lots and lots of busy streets.

A much superior bike-friendly mapping feature can be found at

www.mapmyride.com


Obviously, Google is very good about responding to feedback, so comments and feedback will make this function better over time, but now, I would sooner look at a map than use this function.

Cheers - Lee
looks like it doesn't support OS X Chrome yet. bummer
direction to work suggest i take alleys through a good portion of the city.
It will be nice for quickly typing in a route to get a general idea. However, my favorite part about riding is I never really know what my route is going to be, especially through the city.
funny. bring a case of spare tubes and watch out for those garbage trucks.

iggi said:
direction to work suggest i take alleys through a good portion of the city.
You aren't using Mapmyride to its fullest extent Duppie. To use mapmyride to its fullest extent, you need to sign up, which is free if you can tolerate ads, or you can pay for a membership if you want to avoid the ads. There is an address bar at the top. Enter an address and it will mark an x on the map which allows you to click there. Start there, enter another address, put your mark where the x is. It will automatically route you there, and it usually does a good job.

It has been in existence for 4 years, and Mapmy run for an extra 2. They use Mapquest mapping technology, but have hundreds of thousands of maps and routes to pull information from in intelligent routing. I have rarely had any problems with it and I have used it without an alternate for the last 2 years with dozens of routes created through its assistance.

It is apples and apples.

Cheers - Lee

Duppie said:
You're comparing apples to oranges. Google gives directions (good or bad), whereas mapmyride allows you to create a route.

I agree with your assessment of Google. Relentless innovation will ultimately make this a great app.

Lee Diamond said:
OF all of the mapping functions I have used for cycling, I trust this the least of all. I would absolutely not trust it until it is ironed out a lot more for a route that was taking me into an area I didn't know that well.

It has continuously attempted to run me the wrong way down 1 way streets, into dead ends, and lots and lots of busy streets.

A much superior bike-friendly mapping feature can be found at

www.mapmyride.com


Obviously, Google is very good about responding to feedback, so comments and feedback will make this function better over time, but now, I would sooner look at a map than use this function.

Cheers - Lee
Like it or not here is the thing about Google. They are constantly gathering data, imagine after just one summer of gathering the routes people use most commonly, via sharing street level data on a android enabled mobile phone, how much better the route suggestions will be.
I agree. I think that the thing I am pointing out is that now, the system is suggesting very dangerous, un-=bike friendly routing. Using it blindly now could be a very bad thing.

Google has repeatedly proven their ability to improve through user input and I am sure this will be the case here as well.

Michael said:
Like it or not here is the thing about Google. They are constantly gathering data, imagine after just one summer of gathering the routes people use most commonly, via sharing street level data on a android enabled mobile phone, how much better the route suggestions will be.

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