May 02nd, 2008 / Where to Ride / 12 Comments
Map Your Rides Online
I discovered this post on Bike Noob about Ride Mapping that provides a very helpful review of several online mapping sites. You can use these sites to map out your local rides or plan a long distance bicycle tour. They also provide a great resource for discovering new places to go cycling.
I knew about google maps but I had not previously come across these type of websites. Out of those listed MapMyRide was my favourite due to its ease of use and the additional tools they provide - such as a training log.
I am definitely going to use this site to plan my upcoming bicycle tours.
As an example of the maps available, below is my local bike route around Richmond Park (on the outskirts of London).
12 Responses to “Map Your Rides Online”
Leave a Reply
-
Archive
- July 2008 (2)
- June 2008 (18)
- May 2008 (29)
- April 2008 (9)
-
Recommended Books
May 2nd, 2008 at 3:43 pm
I use MapMyRide a lot. I especially like how it can calculate elevation gain/loss for a route. So I know what I’m getting into :)
May 2nd, 2008 at 3:58 pm
I didn’t notice the elevation feature the first time I checked it out. It works great! Although sometimes I would prefer not to know how much climbing I need to do.
May 2nd, 2008 at 9:12 pm
I like MapMyRide quite a bit too…I ride with a Garmin Edge 305 GPS and I’ve found that the MapMyRide stuff does a pretty decent job importing the data…although MapMyRide likes to recalculate the distance based on their own maps and I don’t think that takes elevation into account…so every ride I do is shorter on MapMyRide as compared to my GPS…I trust the GPS more :) But it’s only .5 miles shorter in 28 miles so I don’t think that’s too horrible!
I would really like Google Maps to put in a “Bike There” option. Many cities have the option of taking public transportation in google already…if the bike maps were available it would be even better!
May 2nd, 2008 at 10:24 pm
Thanks for dropping by Jared. I haven’t ridden with a GPS before but can see that when combined with mapping tools like MapMyRide could make a very powerful combination.
May 4th, 2008 at 5:15 pm
There are quite a few pretty good sites but no killer sites yet in my opinion - I like playing around with this stuff.
I was a motionbased beta tester a few years back - it was great (but has barely changed in years). But I still store all my GPS routes there.
I use gpsies.com and sanoodi.com. And find gpsies.com super easy for making maps - no GPS necessary.
It’s all a matter of taste but mapmyride.com has always been a bit slow for me (but a very good site).
If you have a GPS then BY A MILE the best logbook choice is sporttracks a free piece of software that is truly superb.
Thanks for the post and regards
May 4th, 2008 at 5:26 pm
Hi Will,
Thanks for dropping by and sharing your insights. I will definitely check out your suggestions - and perhaps this may be justification enough for me to pull the trigger and buy a GPS.
May 5th, 2008 at 3:14 am
FYI, Map My Ride elevations are notoriously off base. Other than that, it’s a great site to build your route an import into your Garmin. Another I really like an will use more is Bike Route Toaster. http://www.bikeroutetoaster.com/ . Not only can you build your route for import, but it will create a cue sheet for you. It’s really sweet.
May 5th, 2008 at 8:08 am
Hey jaxtgr,
I love riding in mountains so good elevation information is quite important. On first look bikeroutetoaster looks pretty interesting. But I couldn’t find the ability to easily find existing routes that others have plannned. Do you know if they can do this?
May 5th, 2008 at 5:32 pm
I never looked for it on that site. I really use it for building and importing into my Garmin. I will look tonight and let you know.
May 5th, 2008 at 5:34 pm
No, it is strictly a course creator. I guess I never read the first statement on the site.
BikeRouteToaster.com is a course creation application primarily aimed at Garmin Edge/Forerunner owners although other users without a GPS may also find it useful for planning rides. Courses are created using Google maps and then downloaded from the server.
May 5th, 2008 at 7:34 pm
Great, thanks for coming back with the update jaxgtr.
June 16th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
Your site looks great! I found your blog via Google while searching for online maps and your post regarding g | Map Your Rides Online looks very interesting to me. I have seen many other so-called sites and they have been far from good quality.Your site has all the key ingredients to pulling in visitors.