General Cycling Discussion - Google Maps

Anybody used Google maps for cycling?

Personally, I think this and GPS are wrong on a bike.

I do. Actually I use something called "GMAP" to map out my rides. It serves two purposes. One, I live in the boonies and it is nice to map out new routes that I may have never taken before. Two I leave it open on the computer screen so my wife will know how to find me if she were to need me.

If I like the route, I just save it.

Confession: I've been using toporoute.com.

This article started this thread: http://travel.nytimes.com/2010/08/15/travel/15Prac.html

That makes sense. Reply to Joemess.

I do. I mount my Android phone on my bike and use excellent Google Maps bike directions when I need it. Android also makes excellent GPS bike computer and new phones from HTC and others will be able to interface with heart rate monitors and cadence meters as well.

I use google maps to check distance of a ride. no bike computers that work in my stable and decided this year I don't really need them. yeah, I'm a cranky old fart. I use my cell phone to mark starting and ending time so I can estimate average speed. I'll also use google maps to plan a new route - check relative distances of different ways to go, use satellite view to look for possibility of off-road connectors between destinations.

I look at google to map out and plan rides. when I get back, I plug them into mapmyride to calculate distance. 1 of my 3 bikes has a computer and i havent ridden that bike in.... 3, 4 months? So I usually just make a mental note of what time I leave/get back to determine speed/pace. I dont know why I bother, I maintain a pretty consistent pace, it always comes out the same.

Yes, I use Ridewithgps.com Great site and all the information you could want.

I use Google Maps to plan out routes. The bike directions aren't perfect by any means, but they're a lot better than just "I think I'll head south west, and hopefully end up where I'm going." My buddy and I rode 30ish miles to our respective girlfriend's houses (odd that he and I live 2ish miles away and have girlfriends that are a mile apart from each other at that distance, but there you have it) and I printed out the turn by turn directions for the 13 or so miles we had to ride streets until we got to the hike and bike. Next time I'm copying those directions onto cue cards or something, and maybe second guessing some of the route, but the directions were pretty good.

google gives decent directions, especialy if you tweak them a bit.

Yes, I use Ridewithgps.com Great site and all the information you could want.


+1. I wish they made better printed maps, but I understand that's not a real priority for them.
http://ridewithgps.com/users/11428/routes
I'm pretty sure it's the Google data underneath. There's a couple different sites that do this, including MapMyRide and Bikely.

+1. I wish they made better printed maps, but I understand that's not a real priority for them.
http://ridewithgps.com/users/11428/routes
I'm pretty sure it's the Google data underneath. There's a couple different sites that do this, including MapMyRide and Bikely.

That reminds me that I've been using Daily Mile to keep track of my rides (workouts and commutes) and that it seems to use Google Maps as well. I've tried GPS tracking with MotionX on my older iPhone, but it drains the battery pretty fast and isn't great on tree covered paths. I like Daily Mile (and would be glad to have more friends on there, if anyone else is a user...)

Check this out if you want to use My Maps on an Android phone.
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Google+Mobile/thread?fid=7e42f0cc3e904e1800048defae34445f&hl=en

I use it to plan a route, and I use street view to make sure all of the roads I plan to ride are paved.

I use Google Maps with the cycling overlay to find out where the bike paths are every time I go to a new area. Use it for mass transit too. It isn't perfect but quite often gets me started off and I can discover things for my self from there.

Aaron :)