# Google Maps for bikers?



## singlespeed.org (Feb 14, 2006)

I have been using Google Maps for driving directions for a while, and find it to be quite useful. 

They now have a public transport option, which still has some bugs (at least in SF - doesn't have any Muni, just BART and CalTrain).

I have also tried to fake it to work for biking, which they made easier by having a new selection allowing you to avoid highways. But this really doesn't work well for biking, as it still uses assumptions appropriate for cars (maybe it was made for Vespas?), not bicycles.

There are some sites that do bike routes for certain locations, like http://amarpai.com/bikemap/bikemap.html for SF.

So there is an online petition requesting that Google add a selection to find routes for bikers. If this is something you'd like to see, please click here:
http://www.petitiononline.com/bikether/petition.html


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## singlespeed.org (Feb 14, 2006)

This would be so cool!


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## sometimerider (Sep 21, 2007)

singlespeed.org said:


> I have also tried to fake it to work for biking


I have substantial issues with using Google for bike ride mapping.

It doesn't allow routes that don't follow roads - so you can't make it traverse, for example, places where the road is closed to cars, but not to bikes. (Nearly every route I do has parts like this.)

It won't create a usable cue sheet - a printable page showing all the turns and the cumulative mileage (so you can compare to your bike computer's reading).

There are a number of sites (such as mapmyride) that do better than this (even though they are typically based on Google maps), but my favorite is currently http://www.bikely.com.


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## reklar (Mar 15, 2003)

Signed ... I've gotta believe that Google can do a better job at this than bikely (or anyone else for that matter).


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## ilium (Aug 15, 2006)

While this would be really cool (and I signed it), it seems unlikely Google will do it. There isn't a huge market for it and so it's not worth their time. However, the reason they provide APIs is so people can make specialized extensions for Google Maps like bikely.com and routeslip.com (my favorite one) have done.


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## johnny99 (Apr 2, 2004)

Why a petition? Did someone ask Google for this and were ignored or turned down?


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## singlespeed.org (Feb 14, 2006)

johnny99 said:


> Why a petition? Did someone ask Google for this and were ignored or turned down?


No idea. This came out on one of the email lists I am subscribed to, and I jumped on the bandwagon.


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## Ridgetop (Mar 1, 2005)

Use bikely.com. It's based on google maps anyway and you can override the route restrictions to go wherever you want.


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