Route Builder / Mapping - Feedback please!

[JamesMio]

Morning Folks,

Looking for some input and feedback on what you'd look for from a motorcycle specific online route planner.

For example, is there anything you currently use and swear by (Google maps / Tire etc)?

Is there anything the current ones do that annoys you? Is there anything they don't do that they should?

What would the perfect route planner be able to do, in your opinion?

Cheers dudes/dudettes,
JM

[timwilky]

Having tried some tools and put priority onto minor routes, it is somewhat annoying to do 5 miles down the lanes to then discover you are only 500 yards on from where you turned off the major road.

I use Google maps mostly. What annoys me, is if i tell it to avoid Highways it just avoids motorways, obviously, but will happily put me down a 3 lane A road.

The Google maps cycling route thingy is pretty good. It has grades of "Cycling friendly-ness" including do not ride even though its legal. Something like this for the A-roads at least would be really good, so you know which are 3-lane learner legal motorway, and which have are twisty.

[Brettus]

Just throwing some ideas out there, you'd need a database of weightings for roads that are good for bikers, our criterion are different from the normal traffic so it'd likely have to be crowd sourced, average out the votes for roads (or stretches of if it is easy enough to break down into sections) and then prioritise routing based on these.

Options to choose rest stops with good locations suggested. a slider to choose frequency that would re-route you with some intelligence rather than make you "turn around when possible" and cover the road you have already been down.

I've got some more ideas but no time right now, will post more later.

I'd be tempted to follow the road Brettus is on there, as it would probably be easy to build as a mashup with open street map data as a proof of concept.

Personally, I use Google maps combined with pen and paper, because screw recalculating with sat nav...

[Matt-EUC]

I think it should have a circuit function. You put in your current location, and have different option for circuit length. Like, "Just a quick bimble", "Burn me some fuel", "I'm gonna need a pee break", "I didn't like these tyres anyway" and so on and so forth, going up in distance. It would also be nice to be able to decide what kind of roads you want, like tiny little muddy, gravelly, not really a road, B roads. Or roads like the A272 and A339, highly travelled roads but with some awesome bends and straights.

[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.

[Bibio]

a database of road condition. for example: http://goo.gl/maps/do3Ev avoid at all costs unless on a trail bike as it has more potholes than tarmac. has to be the worst road i have encountered.

Most of the maps that I use are in a Garmin GPS so I find it convenient to use Basecamp for route planning. Occasionally I'll reference Google Earth or Google Maps.

[Brettus]

Wow, some good suggestions while I've been working!
OK with a little more time to think now, (and thinking completely outside the box)
It could do with the backing of a mobile app so that all this nice route planning doesn't boil down to a list of instructions to look out for (unless you google streetview each junction in a printable list, I've done that a few times and it makes life easier than saying look out for the A835 to Small-town-you've-never-heard-of). I know that is VERY wishful thinking but eh.. Go big or go home Plus if the idea is seeded now and it proves popular then it is the endgame to work towards.

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. Incentivise users to submit ratings by achievements or "miles covered" perhaps giving a leaderboard of those who've ridden most this week/month.
The system would be open to abuse but you'd have a report review if it was WAY out of whack with the others.

Social side would obviously be a popular angle but keep it non creepy please, just allow me to see a list/map of roads my friends have ridden and rated in the last period of time.
Groups would also be good for the lurkers among us, like the geographical regions for the forums.

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.

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"

Going back to the social thing, how about check ins at POIs so people could see how popular a place is? beneficial or overly social? People could earn... something, some meaningless something in return for posting useful data like a menu for a cafe or something assuming most small stop off places don't have websites. or maybe just a tick list of facilities provided (toilets being a popular request to know!)

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)

are green lanes listed on google? if not allow users to post them so they can search for a route of their own?

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.

hope some of that might be useful but I appreciate it is quite a selfish (and sometimes outlandish) wishlist.