Route Builder / Mapping - Feedback please!

Bloody hell. That's a comprehensive post. It took me almost 10 seconds to scan read. My eyes are now very tired. Thanks for that B (grrrr).

I was gonna say all that he said. No? Not useful? OK.

There is already a database of riding road awesomeness. Someone way back when decided to start such a website, which does indeed include colour coded roads with features such as gradient and commentary on road conditions.

So a hybrid or crowdsourced approach as suggested is probably the most enticing - if not laborious - option. Google maps is default because (and I can believe no one has mentioned this) its FREE!

So that would be number one on my list. Then, regularly updated and current. Worst thing is riding in an unfamiliar area only to find that the road layout changed 6 months ago but stooopid sat nav neva got the message like!

Any road, next would be the ability to tweak the route on the fly without too much complexity - "Oooh, look wiggly mountain road [click and drag, job done]".

A sexy lady voice would also be nice...

I use TYRE, works well.

I research the bits I want to ride/see then load it in to tomtom, make things to complicated and people won't use them.

Google earth/street are good too, pics of the area and roads so you can check out what they are like on the ground.

[JamesMio]

Some brilliant stuff coming in here folks, thank you all muchly!

[Bibio]

i plan my route in googlemaps then import to TYRE as tyre is way to slow to move things about. once done i then copy the file to my Garmin as i don't like using tyre to do that either.

[Steve_God]

If you're looking to actually 'develop' something like this, and for it to be crowd-led in terms of feedback, then utilising www.openstreetmap.org would probably be best.

Have a look into the use of tags: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Map_Features#Highway
There are currently bicycle apps and websites that utilise the tags to give taylored results, I'm sure it could be possible to make something similar aimed for motorcycling...

[Matt-EUC]

I think you should add in common mobile speed camera spots.

[Jason H]

Originally Posted by Fallout

Yo mate. My dream route planner would be thus:

1. Choose start and end destinations with postcode, say biker friendly hotels for example!
2. Automatically plots me the most direct route, ala Google Maps
3. I then have some sort of overlay option to show wiggly routes
4. At this point I can wigglyify the whole route, or drag onto highlighted wiggly routes
5. Wiggly routes would be colour coded for awesomeness
6. The best landmarks and biker specific locations (cafes etc) would be shown clearly for me to divert to
7. Perhaps some cool treasure hunt style tiles would be highly visible on the map too!
8. Petrol stations and road side cafes also highly visible for planning stops.

As Brettus has said, a DB would be needed to identify good roads. Some sort of easy colour coding by tone would be good for the colour blind. So perhaps normal roads in white (roads without a rating), then good wiggly roads in yellow, blending to a dark red for the best roads, based on rating.

- Users will be able to click on a road and be invited to write a review and rate it, or read reviews and see ratings.
- Same for cafes and eateries
- Hot links from the map to the accommodation providers

Hope that helps dude.

Originally Posted by Brettus

Wow, some good suggestions while I've been working!

OK so crowd sourcing road ratings, perhaps by 3-4 categories:
Road condition, curviness, scenic, flowing or something like that so that when you plot your route you can choose to have a scenic route or only roads with good condition (some of us HATE surprise gravel patches that make the bike and riders rear twitch)

Ratings might need to "decay" or newer ratings have a slightly higher weighting to keep the information fresh.

How about a collaborative approach too, have the route stored and allow people to edit it (with revisions saved) so a group of riders can refine a route between them?

Export to popular rider sat navs would be good assuming they support complex routing.

As much as we like to think none of us crash, we all do and hotpots can exist, ability to mark down hazards would be good and toggle them on/off so the map isn't clogged with stuff but you can see them if you want. I'm thinking for things like "sheep on road frequently" for moorland areas and stuff along with the "tricky curve here that gets 3 people a month"

Assuming you had a profile on the website you could list your bike or at the very least its range that you get per tank so it could suggest fuel stop locations. (it may sound a bit too hand holdy but it's been done on rideouts and was appreciated by quite a few I think)

Last one, ability to post pictures for the photographically inclined among us, so that scenic overlooks or points of photographic interest can be seen as an option.

Originally Posted by Matt-EUC

I think you should add in common mobile speed camera spots.

These things ^^ Being able to convert to various GPS and Sat-Nav file formats probably also extremely useful.

So basically Google maps/earth but with an extra database and options to automatically route build from. Dare I say get in touch with google and see if MotoGoLoco can do a collaborative piece of development. You could use contacts and resource to begin compilation of the database and they can do all the mapping algorithm stuff. Could then be part of Googlemaps as another transport option (they currently have car, foot, bicycle etc.) Then you could further expand the MotoGoLoco brand by having it list (from your list of approved places) accomodation etc displaying your brand banner thing in the corner of the map or as a "Visit MotoGoLoco for approved motorcyle accomodation on this route" link.

Just my thoughts.

J

[JamesMio]

Ho'kaaay...

So, this afternoon we've hit the big green button on our spangly new route-builder. Ta'daaaaa...

www.motogoloco.com/map/

We've not yet gone full hog on a bells & whistles launch, so consider yourselves very privileged indeed as this is a bit of a preview!

Please bear with me, because there's a LOT going on behind the scenes with this, including a few tweaks and extra bits that are still being worked on.

There's been a huge challenge in incorporating everything you/we wanted from a route builder, whilst keeping it simple and straightforward for someone who's never used one before and still swears by their trusty map and compass.

You asked for...

BRETTUS - Crowd sourcing road ratings. Road condition, curviness, scenic, flowing or something like that so that when you plot your route you can choose to have a scenic route or only roads with good condition.

Ratings might need to "decay" or newer ratings have a slightly higher weighting to keep the information fresh. Incentivise users to submit ratings by achievements or "miles covered" perhaps giving a leaderboard of those who've ridden most this week/month.

Trying to define the 'perfect' biking road is just too subjective - we've surveyed hundreds of different riders over the last year while we've been working on this, and we've yet to come up with an infallible set of results.

What someone riding a Harley describes as perfect (stereotypically long straight roads) is very different to what a sportsbike rider wants (fast, sweeping bends) compared to an adventure rider who doesn't mind a bit of gravel if the scenery's good. Hence, we've come up with this:

When creating & saving your routes, you have a series of grading options that help describe & define it for others, namely:

The type(s) of bike you think it's suitable for: (Sports/Tourers/Cruisers/Adventures) -&- a set of sliders to help describe it, being:

Straight<----->Twisty
Urban<----->Rural
Low Traffic<----->Busy Traffic.

From here, you can at least get a feel for the road/route based on how it's been described, and you can decide whether it sounds like fun (to you) or not.

BRETTUS - Perhaps the easiest way to implement this to start with is with a google maps layer. Almost everyone likes it for routing so let the layer give you a tracing paper like suggestion of roads between your start and destination with POIs.

We listened - the system is based on Google Map's own API, with our own customised features built on top.

Layers... It's in there! You can toggle a whole load of cool stuff on/off, including:

• Biker-friendly accommodation
• Iconic Rides (we'll be building these up over time)
• Classic Routes - these are a collection of classic biking roads, think 'Hartside', 'St Mary's Loch', Hawes to Sedburgh' kinda thing. Again, we're working on these just now.
• Top 20 user submitted routes - we've built a 'Reddit-esque' voting system, allowing you to upvote / downvote a route as you see fit. The current top 20 are listed here, and is live to the minute.
• My Private Routes - lets you create a set of routes that you DON'T want to be made public (e.g. - from your home postcode... don't tell bike thieves where your SV is kept overnight!!).

BRETTUS - Export to popular rider sat navs would be good assuming they support complex routing.

How does a straight export right onto your TomTom, Garmin & Navigon GPS, with options to save the route as a KML, GPX or CSV grab ya?

BRETTUS - Last one, ability to post pictures for the photographically inclined among us, so that scenic overlooks or points of photographic interest can be seen as an option.

Done - when you save a route, you can add up to 10 accompanying photos. These can be anything from cool backdrops you'll pass, POI's, the front door of the hotel you're staying at, weird / key junctions...

SPECIALONE - Google earth/street are good too

Done, although there's a little titchy bug that puts the CLOSE STREETVIEW 'X' behind the right-hand filters menu, so you have to close these to exit Street View. We're workin' on this!

RUNAKO - The ability to tweak the route on the fly without too much complexity - "Oooh, look wiggly mountain road [click and drag, job done]".

Done - you can add any existing route (user submitted/iconic etc) to your route by clicking it and adding it to your route. Easy!

As per Google Maps, you can also bend & drag routes like a good'un to your hearts content.

(Side note - it's amazing how many people didn't know you can grab and drag a route by the way...)

BIBIO - I plan my route in googlemaps then import to TYRE as tyre is way to slow to move things about. once done i then copy the file to my Garmin as i don't like using tyre to do that either.

Sounds like a heckuva faff - you'll not need to do that any more . Create, save, export. Done.

JASON-H - Being able to convert to various GPS and Sat-Nav file formats probably also extremely useful.

Done - Create, save, export. Simples!

JASON-H - Dare I say get in touch with google and see if MotoGoLoco can do a collaborative piece of development...

Done No, seriously, our main mapping guy builds routes and maps for Google.

[Tomor]

Yes Yes Yes, just had a quick play, and i think it is good. like the fact you could use it to zoom in where you want to stay and find a hotel nearby! Good work, keep it up. I will have a proper play and re create my route from my recent Scotland tour and compare it to tyre for you (which is what I planned the route in)

I must admit. I never thought you guys would do such an outstanding job of at the very least listening and picking out the best ideas to incorporate into this. Now your site is something I'm more likely to use on a regular basis and the first thing I'll do once this is posted is recommend it. Good job and looking forward to the final product. Excellent!