News » Ride Free Bike Maps

Update: Added Google ‘Bike There’ Directions!

Ever since Google announced that they added a bike map option to their popular mapping software I’ve been working on incorporating the new directions into my map creator. Today I’m happy to announce that I’ve finished updating my code and I uploaded a new version of the map creator!

Here’s a list of the changes:

Added support for bike there directions. The map creator will now plot routes according to Google’s bike there option. Prior to the update the routes were just based on shortest distance and fastest traveling time, for an automobile (without traveling on freeways). This prevented the map creator from plotting routes that used trails or back roads which are more suitable for biking.
I’ve gotten rid of the ‘Plot Mode.’ Now every time you click on the map it creates a new way point and plots directions to that way point. No need to click ‘Plot Route’ anymore.
Way point markers are now draggable. If you decide that the way point isn’t in the right spot you can drag it to a new location. Your route will automatically be re-plotted.
‘Start Over’ has been moved along side the ‘Print’ button and won’t disappear when you change modes.

Additionally I changed the position of the ‘total distance’ text as well. This isn’t really worth making a bullet about it but it is an indication of a future feature: route elevation profiles! Shortly after Google released their ‘Bike There’ directions they also added an elevation service to developers. Eventually that boring white box will include a neat elevation profile as well!

As always I’d love to hear your comments about the map creator. There has been a lot of dissatisfaction with the biking directions in the blogosphere. If you find that my app isn’t giving useful directions let me know.

Google Introduces a ‘Bike There’ Option

Today Google announced that they added a bike there option when asking for directions in Google Maps. Needless to say many, many people were pleased to hear the news. I’s been covered by nearly all the blogs I read about these subjects, such as:

I won’t go over how cool this feature is except to say that I recreated my entire tour route from Blaine, WA to San Yisidro, CA using Google maps in about 20 min. It’s that good. Go see how awesome Google bike maps are for your self!

This has two big effects on my app. First, finding directions will be worlds better. Currently you have to add a bunch of way points to get a good route that follows bike friendly roads. With the bike there option for the maps nearly all of that will vanish. The directions service by Google will do that for you. Secondly, this will push me into another big round of development. My app uses the 2.0 version of Google maps and the bike there option is only available in version 3. That means I will have to rewrite nearly all of my app to get this to work. While I’m not very excited about the prospect of doing that the end result will definitely be worth it.

Until I get V3 working I’ll occasionally add more featured routes so keep checking back or better yet subscribe to the RSS feed.

Update: Whoop Whoop!

I got a route database working!!! I’m super excited about this. Currently I have a grand total of, two, routes in the database. The first was the tester I already posted and the second is a portion of the Oregon Coast Bike Route between the Ft. George Brewery in Astoria and the Rogue Brewery is Newport. Both are excellent breweries and excellent places to start/end a ride.

As for some under the hood specifics, I’ve really only got a basic database functionality working. This update was more to show the progress that has been made than a new ‘version’ of the software. The scripts work by querying the database for a hard coded route id. In the future I want to make something more flexible but this works for now. I have the route published as a wordpress post because that allows comments on the route. I don’t like the idea of adding every single route as a post because that would get overwhelming if I open up the route creation to the public. For now if I open it up or post routes that aren’t super neat I’ll publish them silently without the ability to comment and create some kind of database index page.

Routes that do get their own post and section for comments will be a ‘featured route.’ I’m thinking about putting the US bike route system in as featured routes or ride maps that bike clubs organize. If you are part of a club and want your rides posted on the site give me a holler! I’d love to add your routes.

My next objective is to write a route creation page that will insert routes into the database. Hopefully that should go smoothly. I think figuring out the interface for that will be the hardest part.

Progress on saved routes!

I’ve been doing some research on how I want to move the bike map creator app forward. I know that I want to tackle the ‘saved routes’ feature next. I’ve been avoiding doing any real work on the problem because it is new territory for me and I just didn’t know how I should move proceed.

Today I decided to sit down and whip out a rough draft of what is to come. My goal was to code a simple route in a kml file and load it into the the map creator app. After a few hours of tinkering and researching I did it! I’d love to hear your feedback on this so don’t be afraid to blow up the comments on the article page.

Below is the bike map creator app with a custom initialization script that loads a route saved on the server and plots the way points onto the map. The route I chose is one of my favorite local rides, Bellingham, WA to Deception Pass State Park. You can use the bike map creator below just like the official one. The only difference is the preloaded way points. To jump to the route just press the “Route” button and the route will be created and centered in the map.

Click on the map to add way-points. When you are finished click Plot Route.

Total Distance:

Plot your route, divide it into pages pages, then print!

Click on the map to create way-points. When finished click ‘Find Route.’
Divide the route into pages by panning and zooming to a viewpoint that provides a good level of detail. Then click ‘+ Panel.’ Repeat until all of the route is represented in a page.
Click the print button to move to print mode. Click the printer icon or user your browser’s print function to print the pages.

Some States Reluctant To Build US Bicycle Route System

US Bike Route System

A couple years ago a 50,000 mile long US bike route system was designed. The system would create a national network of roads/trails for cyclists connecting major cities and creating epic bike touring routes.

Now that the plan is in place some states are reluctant to start construction on the plan. As it stands it is up to the states to design the routes and build the signs and other infrastructure for the routes. Of course those things cost money and require staff to work on the projects, things that states don’t really want to devote to cycling projects.

If you want to support the projects contact your local representatives and join the Adventure Cycling Association Facebook page.

Update: Doubleclick bug fix

The other day a gentleman named Rich pointed out a bug to me. Google maps has a built in feature which zooms and centers the map when it is double clicked. My program was registering the double click as two single clicks as well which caused a pair of way points to be created and caused the map to zoom.

After a bit of research and a quick edit to the code I’ve fixed the bug. The solution I found was created by a man named Marcelo. It is a common solution to this problem which is present in all Google map programs which utilize single clicks. The solution involves setting a timer to the clicks to wait for a possible double click event. Unfortunately this makes the way point creation hang for a few milliseconds. It’s not a big deal but it irks me just the same.

Thanks again to Rich for finding the bug!

Update: Interface Shift

Well I finally got around to implementing some of the interface changes that needed to happen. The goal was to make it more intuitive and streamlined. To make that happen I made the following changes:

Plot mode is now ‘Route.’
Panel mode is now ‘Divide.’
Print mode is the same.

I’ve also started calling the ‘panels’ ‘pages.’ Which I think more people understand. I’ve also updated the print-out so that each page gets it’s own sheet of paper. I’ve also removed the ‘Font Size’ button. Now the font is always set to small. I think that size is easily readable and shouldn’t need to be adjusted. Along with that I’ve removed the text directions from all the modes but print. This removes the unnecessary clutter that they produce. Lastly I scrapped the old print mode and made a new one. When you move into print mode the main map recenters on the entire route and each page you have created gets it’s own map which is displayed below the main map. The text directions associated with each page are displayed alongside. Since all the pages are displayed you only need to print once!

The only new functionality I added was the ‘- Route’ button. This button takes a route which has been plotted and turns it back into waypoints. So if you wanted to adjust the route without having to start over you can click this button; move your waypoints; and plot the route again. I had actually created it a while ago but held off in releasing it because I didn’t think it was really necessary. I’m still not sold on it so if you like it give me some feedback.

I’ll be working toward making some way of loading/saving routes to a database after this. I’m guessing this will take a while so don’t think this site has died if nothing changes for a while.

Lack of Updates

You may have noticed a lack of activity on the site recently. It started with the Thanksgiving holiday and will continue through the new year. I have been doing some work to the bike map creator but I don’t have anything to show for it. A lot of what I’m doing is conceptual right now.

I had planned to focus on making some kind hardwired way to save/load routes but I realized that the interface (always) needs work. After talking to my roommate who isn’t a cyclist about the program I decided that I need to cut out some of the bloat in the program. You can expect to see the split function disappear along with a redesign of the plot and print modes.

In fact all of the modes are getting renamed. Plot, panel, and print is great for alliteration but I think it isn’t very clear what the purpose of each mode is. Right now the program is overly flexible. I think this makes designing the bike maps harder because the things that happen during each mode aren’t intuitive. Here are some of the areas I’m looking at:

Text directions (they should show up sooner)
Font size button should show up with the text directions
Print mode is a mess, you really should only have to hit print once, not for every panel
What the hell is a panel anyway? I think I might be the only one who knows
The split function is slow and doesn’t really have a huge benefit considering that printing your own pages is cheap.
Route editing could use some attention. What happens if you want to add a way-point in the middle of the route? Or you want to edit the route after it has been plotted?
You probably can’t tell but the code is a mess…
If the view point gets changed then clear text directions.
Individual panel deletion needs to be added

That is a lot of stuff. I also just got a new job so my time to work on Ride Free Bike Maps has diminished a lot. The job requires that I get up super early too and my body is seriously rebelling against that right now. That means working on the site after work is just not gonna happen. My body needs rest and because of that my mind doesn’t function well at all (OOOH philosophy BONUS!). On top of all that I’m headed to Kauai for the first week of the new year and I will not be working on the site at all. You may see pics of some sort if I find neat bike stuff but most posts will head to my personal blog/facebook.

So there you have it. Stay tuned I will be adding to this site in the future. I really want to move on to the next phase where saving/loading bike maps will come into being but I must do this first.

An Early Christmas Gift From The Feds

On Dec. 16 the Federal Highway Administration released an update to it’s Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices. Included in the update was a slew of early Christmas goodies for cyclists. I ran across the news on the Bike Portland and Biking Bis blogs.

Among the changes were improvements to signage related to bike traffic. Shared lane markings (a.k.a. sharrows) along with “Bicycles May Use Full Lane” signs were added. I got to experience both of these while riding around San Francisco this summer. I really like them both. They reinforce a cyclist’s rights on the road. I believe that this will help ease conflicts between cyclists and motorists while boosting cyclists’ confidence.

Another exciting addition to the signage repertoire were U.S. Bicycle Route signs. These signs are to be erected on the 50,000 mile bike route network created by the Adventure Cycling Association and the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials. My experience with such signs has been mixed. Some areas seem to have better signage than others. Generaly there were more in urban areas which left me to wonder and worry about the lack of signs in rural areas. Hopefully this update will increase the signage in the areas where it is lacking.

I’m betting that I won’t see much of an improvement around Bellingham but these new guidelines give me hope.

Ride Free Bike Maps Coffee Giveaway!

Yesterday I was all set to get working on making some kind of save system for the maps. I’m really stoked about the possibilities of being able to save maps and share them with your friends. It is a really important feature of the map creator.

However!

I have been talking to a few people about the Map Creator and I heard that it was not very intuitive to use. Making the map creator easy to use is much more important than anything else. This means I need to do some ‘user experience’ testing.

Here’s the deal: I will buy you a coffee or another beverage of your choice if you sit down with me and do some user testing. To be eligible for the deal you must be in Bellingham and have a laptop or access to a public computer.

Leave me comment on this and let’s go get some coffee!