New awesome way to plan touring trip
 

Not sure if this is a repost, but...

In google maps, you can click on the picture button and virtually ride virtually any route.
You can grab the little man and drag him, or just click on the arrows on the road and travel the route, and even grab the picture, rotate any direction, and zoom in.

With technology like this, why even take a bike tour? Jjust duct tape a laptop on your handlebars, put your bike on the trainer and you’ll be on a bike tour in no time*.
*(Above method works best accompanied by LSD).

This is such a nice feature for stealth campers, because with this, incorporated with Google map’s satellite and terrain features, you can find excellent places to camp before you even leave.

When you find places that look of interest, right click and select “add destination”, then right click and select center map. The just copy and paste this in your browser address bar and hit enter or go button.

javascript:void(prompt('',gApplication.getMap().getCenter()));
(As the URL doesn’t ever change, you only need to paste this once, and just hit the go button every time you need new coordinances, but remember to center map before hand, as it gives them based on the center of the map)

it will display GPS coordinance in a little pop up window

GPS coordinances will be displayed in WGS84 hddd.dddd. You can copy and paste into your waypoint manager (set preferences to hddd.dddd as garmin is hddd.mm.mmm by default, but your handheld should auto convert them to your default. My Etrex does.

Let me know if you need any help with any of this. Be glad to.

http://guysyrup.googlepages.com/hj.JPG

Streetview is cool, but the downside is that many areas aren't shown or are outdated. Just a heads up =)

Works great as long as I tour within 2 miles of my house.

I think the reason that I like the option of stealth camping on a tour is that I don't have to be tied down to set itineraries and just go. If I had everything mapped out with that kind of detail I'd feel like I was losing some of my autonomy on a tour.

On the other hand, there are areas where it's just difficult to find a campsite. I've spent hours, in some cases, scanning the sides of roads for the trace of an area that might be suitable for stealth camping. If I had potential stealth camp sites mapped out ahead of time, I might feel a bit more confident and spend less time hunting on the sides of roads for an elusive campsite.

I guess I've spent a lot of time pouring over google maps regular overhead features, maybe I'll find a use for the streetview when it actually covers a broader area. The problem that I currently have with the streetview is that it typically ends by the time you reach city limits, which is usually when I start looking for camp sites.

I hate to break it to you, but the little man doesn't go lots of places.

Maybe so, But I have just mapped out a tour across 3 states. I had a street view virtualy everytime I needed one, so nothing to break to me; don't sweat it.

. . . : < probably faster to just get lost and find your way back, i'd rather be riding O:-)

I'm the same exact way. What I did, along with marking all the stealth friendly campsites, was mark the areas where there were none and add a note to my waypoint, i.e., "last camp site for 2 hours"

So I will camp just as freely, but with better information.

I guess everyone is pooh poohing on this, but I think this is the best thing to happen to touring since....., since,..... I've got nothing. Has anything really revolutionized the way we tour since its inception?

Puncture resistant tires is all I can think of.

Been cought in fence lines for too long, too many times to muck the idea of taking an hour or 2 of preperation in avoidance, but I am just an over prepared kind of guy, so maybe ur right.

I have trouble finding any good LSD.

Coverage is getting better all the time, but it still is very poor in many rural areas. I looked at 5 or 6 states where I have toured and it was pretty worthless in the rural areas for the roads I want to ride on tour .

Edit: With a little more checking it looks better in some areas. It is worth using where available, but where coverage is spotty I would pass. I'd rather not pick roads based on whether they were covered by street view or not.

OTOH, where it does cover it is really nice.

LSD in 2009?

There hasn't been any good LSD since Orange Sunshine.

Street view is rather limited. I like to use Google Earth and use a slanted view. You're not at ground level but it gives a nice idea of the terrain.

Giving wide berth to the spinners on bad LSD...

Google maps is a wonderful resource and, while it didn't have this feature when i did my first overnighter last fall, i did make use of street view to get a feel for the openness of areas. My main gripe with gmaps is that it (along with most other mapping services) completely ignores topography in calculating routes, making it sub-optimal (at best) for planning out a tour. I realize there are dedicated bike tour maps and such, but i really wish there was a "consider vertical gain" checkbox when getting routes from the service.

I wish google would tackle the whole lack of LSD in the bike touring community.

once I was missing new orleans I typed my friends address into google maps and did the whole street view thing. It gave me a wierd feeling of wow this is cool I can see my friends house their block and the corner store where i would buy beer and soda and also if this is public what does google know that isn't public?

technology can be scary sometimes, its a tool and in the hands of the wrong people a pretty frighting one, guess i've read to many dystopia scifi novels. mapping techology and gps is cool and all but sometimes getting lost is fun, sometimes getting lost is the best part of the trip. I also wonder if certain techology dumbs people down, if everything is figured out for you in advance there is no learning from making mistakes.

New Orleans is pretty big to be missing.
That's some bad LSD.... :D

I love maps. Half the fun of a tour is preparing for it, using every map I can find.

But there's something else I like about a tour: not knowing what a place looks like until I get there. I guess I like a suprise, because I avoid photos of the places I'll be heading. A map, without photos, is just enough for me to...wonder. And I like that.