I love Google's bike map directions for Austin - they've got some great advice on routes to take that are bike friendly.

Today, I ran into a funny situation where Google maps was advising me to take a shortcut that showed up as a bike trail between two larger streets. Of course, I love finding new paths and routes, so I was totally up for it and followed my Android phone GPS right down the path. After a quarter mile, the trail turned into a six-inch wide dirt path, and then after another quarter mile turned into a dry creek bed full of huge rocks I wasn't going to be able to ride over with my comfort/hybrid. This was called Cactus Ridge Trail. I was amazed that this path had been scouted out to the extent that you could GPS through it, but if I had been riding a decent mountain bike it would have been pretty cool.

I plan to scout out a lot more of these trails that are showing up on the Google maps for Austin, although I'm sure I'll find a lot of these weird little paths and gulleys. I'll keep track of the decent paths, but the creek beds filled with large rocks won't become part of my commute unless I decide to get back into more serious mountain biking like I was in my 20's.

Here's a nice picture from the Austin Parks website of the part of the path I was able to navigate - it's a bit more overgrown than this picture right now:



Anyone else strapping an Android phone to their bike and trying out Google's bike GPS directions? Finding anything interesting? I'm amazed at the number of alternate routes - Austin seems like a whole new city to bike through now.