Route sharing website.

Hi Everyone,

I've not really properly introduced myself on here yet, but I'm a new biker having recently passed my DAS test (5th July). I bought my first bike a couple of weeks later from Steve (RedMcGregor) from these forums, and couldn't be happier! Photos of me and the bike coming soon!

For now though, I just wanted to ask a couple of quick questions about potentially creating a route sharing website. The idea behind it is simply to enable bikers to share routes with each other, and attach all the usual comments, photos etc. to said routes. The motivation is simply my own experience - I'm a new biker, in an area that I've only recently moved to, and I want some inspiration for good places to ride. Naturally (for me) I looked to the internet, but there was nothing*!

So:

1. Do you know of / use anything like I'm describing? - *I've found "MotoWhere", but it's not the best implementation, and leaves a lot to be desired in my opinion.

2. Would you use it? - free, naturally, but active biker communities like this one are where I see something like this really being useful and fun. If nobody else sees the point, I won't bother.

3. Any *must have* capabilities/features? There's the basics like commenting on/rating/tagging routes, but is there anything that you have always thought would be really awesome? I have loads of ideas for this, which would have to be prioritised carefully, but I'm keen to hear everyone else's views.

4. Cake or Bacon Buttie?

Some of the features I'd like myself:

- facebook integration, e.g. "Redders is planning to take this route [map] on this day, click here to Join him"
- export to gps / google maps navigation. Android phones have google maps navigation which can read out turn by turn directions through the headphones, would love this for custom routes.
- geotagged photo support. Take pics along the route and have them show up in the right place on the map (if they're geotagged), or place them manually.

point to point routes eg rider wants to go from preston to hull
site suggests roads used by others to relivant journey not just their full routes
eg rider A has a route around blackburn so a stage of it can be used with stage of another (rider B's) route that is around say leeds, so stage 1 of rider A's route then conects to stage 7 of rider B's route to get you from preston to hull

hope that makes sence

also if it would daily connect to and update directly from the speed scamra locations that plod put up
so it would show where the mobile barstewards are that day on your route

[timwilky]

for rideouts I just create routes in google maps and send links to route

Hi Redders and welcome! I too recently past my test(April) and enjoying my new hobbie very much. Heres a link to a website i use. Myself and two mates did one of the routes and it was fantastic.
http://www.bestbikingroads.com/

I used Nokia Sports Tracker some time back which did more or less what you suggest (I think it has ceased now though) to track my cycling rides, I now use a Garmin unit which does much the same thing, although the Nokia setup could be used 'real time'. I only use it to record my own rides and store them on my laptop but you can upload them to t'Internet for general viewing ore sharing only with pals. There are others such as MapMyRide.
One thing to bear in mind, if you are posting routes for viewing by anyone you don't know I would suggest you don't start (or end) recording it from home, not a good idea to have every scroat in the contry knowing where you keep your nice shiney bike is there?

Cheers guys! Some good ideas here. Mapmyride is great, this is the only site I've seen that's really 'up to date' web technology/functionality wise, but the emphasis is much more on cycling than the motorized alternative!

Google maps routing is really good, but the emphasis of the site would be route discovery, and it's very difficult to do that with gmaps alone...

Keep it coming and I'll think about it some more. If I decide it's something worth doing, I'll let you guys know!

Cheers.

I was thinking about a similar website a few weeks ago when I started to think about touring a bit more. I'm a web dev myself and would love to join an open project on this theme.

At the moment I use http://www.instamapper.com/ combine with an app for my iphone (android version exists as well) to map the routes I take and also make my wife worry less when I'm out with the bike.

This is great idea but unfortunately the developer has run out of resources to expand the project.

Would be great if we could use the phones to upload the routes we've done, then refine them on the website, tag them and publish them with options to review and download to GPS devices, print instructions or on screen google maps.

I think a website like this would be a fantastic idea, i like the facebook application idea aswell.
Maybe you should have a chat with forum top brass to see if you could add a peice to the forum, like route planner or something like that.