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It's all about the bike


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The Rapid has been out of beta for some time now and using google maps.

http://www.ridetherapid.org/ride/routes/1/map-and-stops

~John

Its out of Beta on their website, but it is not yet incorporated into the normal Google Maps website... thats what I was referring to. I want the ability to type in 2 addresses and Google tells me where to talk to, what bus to get on, when to transfer, etc. Can't wait for that functionality (especially on my iPhone!)

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  • 4 months later...

So back to the Times article...so I guess more people need to get out and bike! The good thing about the GR area, IMO, seems like it's a more defensive driving area than a lot of places. Or maybe I just get stuck behind a ridiculous number of soccer moms. From my experience in visiting different cities i've noticed that in areas like Portland, SF, Seattle or anywhere else for that matter where bike ridership is pretty high, people do def. drive accordingly.

In other news, I can't wait to get my bike together and start riding!

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Google Maps now has a bicycling travel option. It's in beta, but it works.

And when it routes you down, say, the east beltline, you can report that back to Google for future corrections.

Some interesting results. Here are comments from a few far-flung friends (home state first):

AZ: Google Bike Maps (http://maps.google.com/biking) rolled out today. Seems to work OK for urban trips in the Phoenix metro area. Having way more fun plugging in inter-city trips (like Phoenix to Flagstaff) and seeing how each of the suggested routes would be a one-way trip to the side of a milk carton. :)

Some of the roads that Google wants to send me down aren't really there - which is a Bad Thing in the middle of a very unforgiving desert. And only a few miles away is a freeway with a perfectly legal shoulder to ride on.

Just to put things in perspective, it seems to be doing OK on recommending decent routes in the urban area, where it'll get the most use.

FL: Within Orlando, not looking too good. Finds "bike facilities" regardless of quality and at the expense of better routes. Links them together with roads I would avoid. Been testing it against my routes... ranges from not quite ideal to "what were they thinking?"

I love Google's mapping software... the streetview and satellite are terrific resources. I hope they will improve the bike mapping, but I saw some results that make me think they've built it on the worst of cycling ignorance.

One section of a route was clearly drawn on the sidewalks and across crosswalks where there were no bike facilities. It led the rider to a nonexistent sidepath, then down that sidewalk against traffic, then a shoulder of a 6-lane arterial, then ooops, the rider was dumped into an interchange where she would have to cross 2 lanes of high speed traffic entering a freeway. Bizarre - find the most facilities, then dump the rider into what would be an impassable obstacle for someone who "needs" facilities. I'm going to do a writeup on that particular route and send it to them...

PA: I tried a 6-miler (my house to Emmaus) and a 50-miler (my house to Media, PA). In the 6-miler, it had me make a hairpin-right turn at the bottom of an 18 percent grade. For the 50-miler, it gave me the option of going slightly out of my way to ride on a rail trail. It chose roads I know to be less desirable than the routes I use in that area.

If anyone can make continuous improvements, it's Google.

CA: Currently, they lump facilities and terrain and traffic together, and the route selection algorithm prefers more, less, and less, respectively. I suggested (a few years ago when this was under initial development and open to internal suggestions) that they separate those three preferences. That wouldn't complicate the algorithm at all, but it would clutter the user interface. This is really pretty good for a first release, and perhaps they'll find a good way to expose those preference settings in a later version.

My favorite commute route takes me the entire length of Foothill Expressway, an excellent place to cover distance on a road bike, with few intersections, excellent pavement, and good sight lines. But it carries lots of traffic and has a 45mph speed limit. The algorithm routed me instead via a hodge-podge of neighborhood streets and multi-use paths, on which I would never be able to sustain a high enough cruise speed for long enough to get me to work in a useful amount of time. So if I were to depend upon this suggestion, I would actually be discouraged from riding to the office.

UT: I tested my 2.3 mi commute. The way I go has 7 turns and two stop signs, all on 2 lane 25mph residential streets The way they chose has 16 turns and one stop sign, and stair-steps through the neighborhoods. By comparison, the pedestrian route has 5 turns, goes down a big hill and back up and includes several blocks past a gravel pit where there is no shoulder or sidewalk. (they warn that they don't know about sidewalks). And the car route goes down and up a steep hill. All routes cover the same 2.3 miles.

Closer to home, here's their recommended route to cross the straits: http://tinyurl.com/yg57a48

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Got a couple new gadgets for my bike. Well, I guess an iphone bike mount and a tail-light aren't technically gadgets, but now I'm able to locate myself on a map, get directions, and track my routes/speeds/distances/times/accumulated total climbing/descending height... and do so more safely with my little red taillight.

4429589407_4a613e8c6a_o.jpg

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Got a couple new gadgets for my bike. Well, I guess an iphone bike mount and a tail-light aren't technically gadgets, but now I'm able to locate myself on a map, get directions, and track my routes/speeds/distances/times/accumulated total climbing/descending height... and do so more safely with my little red taillight.

4429589407_4a613e8c6a_o.jpg

Hooray for lights!! You'll want a headlight as well. It's just as, if not more important than the taillight. With no taillight, cars approaching from behind might see the motion of your pedal reflectors in their headlights, but with no headlight, you're virtually invisible to cars pulling out at intersections or turning left in front of you.

That goes for anyone who rides after twilight, even on trails or sidewalks. Please get lights!!!

That looks like a pretty nice mid-level ride you've got there. I'm just happy it's getting warm enough that I can work on my bicycle in the garage and give it the good overhaul it's in desperate need of one of these evenings with my extra hour of sunlight. :)

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I was reminded today after riding my bike, that I hit the sweets a little to hard over holiday period. I probably shouldn't accept gifts that include 4lb of jelly beans, which if you know me, are my Achilles heel. I'm looking forward to "PedalGRing" as tSlater refers it. My goal for this year is 1,000 miles on the bike. Last year I only got up to around 350 miles. Do you know any cycling clubs that would accept a semi-novice rider? I know of one in Ada, but Ada is a long ways away from where I live. Some of these cycling club websites are so confusing. The layout, where to find information, how to join... Very intimidating to someone who wants to take up the sport. The PedalGr's website is easy to understand, but take for instance the RapidWheelman's website. Yikes! I can make more sense of the organization of cooked spaghetti than that website.

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I was reminded today after riding my bike, that I hit the sweets a little to hard over holiday period. I probably shouldn't accept gifts that include 4lb of jelly beans, which if you know me, are my Achilles heel. I'm looking forward to "PedalGRing" as tSlater refers it. My goal for this year is 1,000 miles on the bike. Last year I only got up to around 350 miles. Do you know any cycling clubs that would accept a semi-novice rider? I know of one in Ada, but Ada is a long ways away from where I live. Some of these cycling club websites are so confusing. The layout, where to find information, how to join... Very intimidating to someone who wants to take up the sport. The PedalGr's website is easy to understand, but take for instance the RapidWheelman's website. Yikes! I can make more sense of the organization of cooked spaghetti than that website.

The RapidWheelmen website is bad not because they're trying to keep anyone out, but just because it needs a serious update. It's something that just hasn't been properly addressed. Josh keeps wanting to bring it up at the board meetings, but it's hard to do without stepping on feet or offending people or setting yourself up to be the one to do it, but the fact that you have now confirmed what we've both thought for a long time makes me want to push the issue more.

That said, the RapidWheelmen would be happy to have you join and welcome riders of all skill levels. There are rides almost every night of the week somewhere around town. Obviously some of the rides are faster paced and might not be exactly what you're looking to do. The current ride calendar was lacking a good key to ride speeds last I checked (ah the joys of all volunteers orgs), but I think all of the rides have contact info for the ride captains. Josh is also thinking of doing some longer PedalGR rides on weekends this summer and I assume I'm invited, so those won't be at a very fast pace.

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... Do you know any cycling clubs that would accept a semi-novice rider? I know of one in Ada, but Ada is a long ways away from where I live. Some of these cycling club websites are so confusing. The layout, where to find information, how to join... Very intimidating to someone who wants to take up the sport. The PedalGr's website is easy to understand, but take for instance the RapidWheelman's website. Yikes! I can make more sense of the organization of cooked spaghetti than that website.

The other issue (for me, anyway) with the RW rides: they are pretty much car-launched. I do own a four-wheeler, but I hate to drive 10 or 20 miles to a ride start. The club does have a few rides that start in Riverside Park or at the Belmont WPT trailhead, starting later in the year (probably May). Watch for the ice cream ride; it goes on Friday evenings.

Then there are the casual rides with the fixie hipsters rolling out of Commute bike shop on Weds nights. They are using Facebook to organize their events. This can be an interesting experience (I did it once).

Last year Meetup.com saw a women's ride. Mostly it started in Ada, and I think a couple of times it commenced at Riverside Park.

Crinzema, where is home?

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The other issue (for me, anyway) with the RW rides: they are pretty much car-launched. I do own a four-wheeler, but I hate to drive 10 or 20 miles to a ride start. The club does have a few rides that start in Riverside Park or at the Belmont WPT trailhead, starting later in the year (probably May). Watch for the ice cream ride; it goes on Friday evenings.

The driving to ride thing is an issue for us too. That and the need for speed problem that some of the rides suffer from is why Josh started the PedalGR rides. I don't know if the ice cream rides on Fridays are going to happen this year. I know that the ride captain had a lot of conflicts and wasn't able to make very many of them last year, so he might not be doing it this year.

Josh and I, and a couple of friends signed up to do ODRAM (One Day Ride Across Michigan) in August, so I think we'll have to start doing some training rides soon. We'll be in touch if/when that happens.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Check out the 24-Minute Bikewitness Action News hashtag on Twitter for updates from around GR and beyond from a small, but growing number of citizen reporters. It's not "serious" news, but it is pretty fun! You notice a lot from your bicycle that you can't see or smell inside a car. Anyone is welcome to submit reports using the #bikewitness hashtag.

http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23bikewitness

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Grand Rapids ranked #35 in bike-friendly cities: http://www.bicycling...friendlycities/

I really like some of these ideas: http://www.bicycling.com/article/0,6610,s1-3-583-22222-1,00.html <--- copy & paste this into browser

I love that we made that list, and I think we do have a strong bicycling culture here. When I got my haircut last week at Douglas J, the student who had moved here from Holland after going to Hope (not sure if she graduated) said she really loved that there were so many bicyclists around. She did live in Eastown, where there are a lot of bicyclists.

Anyone else hate it when Grand Rapids is put on a map like this and our "pin" is placed in Pentwater instead of our actual location? A quick look at Google Maps & Wikipedia confirmed what I had thought, we're actually SOUTH of Milwaukee by about 1 degree latitude.

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I love that we made that list, and I think we do have a strong bicycling culture here. When I got my haircut last week at Douglas J, the student who had moved here from Holland after going to Hope (not sure if she graduated) said she really loved that there were so many bicyclists around. She did live in Eastown, where there are a lot of bicyclists.

I thought this was great too... I had only thought GR had its fair share of bicycle enthusiasts, I never figured anyone from the outside looking in would consider GR a bike-friendly community. I guess we're more of a cool city than I thought.

And I'm really happy with the photo too... Sure, we grumble about the overuse of our "marquee shot" sometimes, but I think in this case, the three towers with the cyclists in front works much better than most of the pictures used for other cities on the list. We are being represented well. shades.gif

Anyone else hate it when Grand Rapids is put on a map like this and our "pin" is placed in Pentwater instead of our actual location? A quick look at Google Maps & Wikipedia confirmed what I had thought, we're actually SOUTH of Milwaukee by about 1 degree latitude.

Well, they got the general area. Some of the other pins are off too. As long as they didn't put it where Detroit or Lansing would have gone, then I'm happy.

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...And I'm really happy with the photo too... Sure, we grumble about the overuse of our "marquee shot" sometimes, but I think in this case, the three towers with the cyclists in front works much better than most of the pictures used for other cities on the list. We are being represented well. ...

Since when does the Bissell/Metro Health/whoevertheirsponsoristoday Team ride on a sidepath?

Oh well.

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In case you are one of many who don't get the print edition, today's GR Press had an article about Grand Rapids making #36 on Bicycling Magazine's top 50 bicycle friendly cities.

http://www.mlive.com...s/A1_Friday.pdf

Oddly enough, a search of Mlive.com for "bicycle" did not turn up this story. http://search.mlive.com/bicycle

Here's a link to the story text: http://www.mlive.com...6th_on_mag.html

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