Does the Demand for cycling mapping software exist?

On 23 Mar 2004 19:12:47 -0800, [email hidden] (markbajek) from

url='http://groups.google.com/'http://groups.google.com/url said:

Does the demand for a mapping software program exist
that is specific to cyclists or recreational travelers?
Either as an add-on to existing Topo software or Street
level mapping?

If there is should we bother to tell someone?

Yes, and it exists. It's pricy, though.

--
[email hidden]
A very small object - Its center.
25

Quoted message said:

Does the demand for a mapping software program exist
that is specific to cyclists or recreational travelers?
Either as an add-on to existing Topo software or Street
level mapping?

If it were there, I would purchase it. However, I don't know
how big the market is for such specific software.

I've done fairly well with a combination of existing
products such as TopoUSA/web searches and then augmented
with state highway maps and asking locals works moderately
well. I may not pick ideal routes and sometimes there is a
surprise but that is part of the adventure...

For example, last 4th of July week, I had a surprise of ~50
miles of gravel road in Kansas. One map said the "old US 40"
was gravel, another said it was paved. I made the assumption
that they had paved roads that were formerly gravel...
instead it was the opposite, two counties had decided that
it might be cheaper to tear up asphalt road and convert it
to gravel... It made for some extra adventure and also
conversations with locals (some of who thought it was a
pretty stupid idea).

Quoted message said:

Most highway maps just show a road,sometimes diffent
colors for state routes or Interstates and major
throughways.....but Gravel? Used to be grey? Now the
map just shows road....no distinction.
Software?.....zoom IN and yep..it's a road..but surface
detail is scant to be sure.

Some state highway maps will indicate paved or non-paved
routes. The locals can also help here.

Quoted message said:

So many miles to peddle before a restroom magically
appears.

That is what extra TP in the pannier is for :-)...

Quoted message said:

Wouldn't it be nice to be able to plan a 30-40-100 mile or
cross state self contained tour without driving it in a car
first to determine suitablility?

Most of my experience is with self contained tours (so far
47/50 states of USA). If I'm going for a week or more trip,
then the variability in route is another of those uncertain
variables like weather or mechanical problems. For example,
I've had rain wash out roads or create sinkholes too on
tours. I plan for the worst if necessary and be able to
adjust to what I hear from locals.

Quoted message said:

What if I wish to ride to the Great Divide or Lewis and
Clark trail from Detroit? Just how do I get around Chicago
without a good map or mapping software? How Do I join US-2
from Detroit and avoid dirt roads. How do I get to anywhere
without quality maps?

I bicycled into Chicago in 1992. My ride into the city
(coming from US30 and then Aurora) was not ideal, even
harrowing at a few points but survivable. If I were doing it
again, I would definitely ask around on the web for better
choices. So probably nice but can also be done with local
maps [Side note: Of the largest US cities, I found Detroit &
Miami to be worst and didn't have much difficulty with LA,
New York City, San Diego, Boston, San Francisco or Phoenix]

Quoted message said:

Often as not in Michigan one is confronted with riding
along what you believe is paved route for it's entire
length and then suddenly it vanishes into gravel or plain
ol' dirt. Not a pleasant surprise for a loaded self
supported tour.

I had similar experiences in Michigan of gravel roads. In
contrast, Wisconsin had many paved secondary roads.

Quoted message said:

Miles of unexpected dirt or gravel to reach pavement? Could
be worse......"Bridge Out 1.5 miles Ahead". Surprise! I'm
willing to traverse some gravel,washboard,sand to get to a
mostly paved route....But not 10-20 miles Unexpectedly!

When I get those "Road Closed" signs, as often as not, I'll
try cycling ahead to see if it is really closed.
Occasionally I end up carrying my touring bike through
something but almost as often the road is better than
expected.

Quoted message said:

Wouldn't it be nice if Delorme or Rand or MS could
incorporate some filters specific to recreational use into
their alreadly marketed Topo or Street Level maps?

Agreed this would be nice. I've also purchased "The
Milepost" when cycling in Alaska. Definitely a nice model of
a description for a road through a rural area.

The other model is some websites I've seen that collect
information about bicycling routes...

Quoted message said:

Are there enough of us out there will to purchase this
software to make it a viable product to produce? Are we
willing to ask Delorme or someone to develop this type of
product for us as a community of cyclists? Should we just
wait and see if they can read our minds?

I would purchase this if sold. Lack of such product also
doesn't prevent me from making my own adventures anyway.

Quoted message said:

Click.......All known dirt surfaces vanish leaving only
paved.
Click.......All US/State roads go bye bye leaving only
county and township roads paved and unpaved
(selectable).

I actually like US/State roads as likely candidates
for touring.

Quoted message said:

Click.......Delete all interstates.

Existing mapping software essentially does this. I use a
setting that discourages Interstates and rarely directs me
there. So much so, that sometimes I know of a frontage road
and this isn't also selected.

--mev, Mike Vermeulen

Would it be nice? Yes. Useful? If done right. Commercially
viable? Absolutely not. Let's face it, the cycle tourist
community is relatively small. Further, it is notoriously
cheap. Take a look through the archives of this group,
touring@phred, etc. and you will find that folks are always
looking for the cheap way, including continual calls for
'free' mapping software. I see no way that a company can
make a go at targetting software to cycle tourists.

But, the tools at hand are not that bad. Forget DeLorme;
their mapping software is slow, has a a terrible
interface, and has too many inaccuracies. Look at some of
the alternatives. Garmin's MapSource does distinguish
between paved and unpaved road, but their maps are only as
good as the GIS data they license, which is usually out of
date. And there is a wealth of cheap and/or free paper
maps to augment.

If you want to create the software, go ahead, but be
prepared to lose a bit of cash. Some of us will buy it

- rick

A bit OT, since it's not software, but: I think it would be
great if Michelin type maps were available for the USA as
they are for France. They show all the roads one would chose
for cycling, including traffic density and steep grades. And
I would guess that Michelin is making a profit on them.

Paul

Rick Warner <[email hidden]> wrote in
:"]news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

Would it be nice? Yes. Useful? If done right.
Commercially viable? Absolutely not. Let's face it, the
cycle tourist community is relatively small. Further, it
is notoriously cheap.

The long distance touring community may be super cheap and I
agree that reliable paper maps are best for them.

On the other hand, I think there are a lot of recreational
riders who would be interested in software that could
produce detailed and accurate route sheets for day rides.
The DeLorme Topo product can be very inaccurate regarding
small roads and total elevation gain. Judging by the number
of carbon fiber and titanium bikes I see on the road, these
folks have some amount of cash to burn.

In article <[email hidden]>,

Rick Warner said:

Would it be nice? Yes. Useful? If done right. Commercially
viable? Absolutely not. Let's face it, the cycle tourist
community is relatively small. Further, it is notoriously
cheap. Take a look through the archives of this group,
touring@phred, etc. and you will find that folks are
always looking for the cheap way, including continual
calls for 'free' mapping software. I see no way that a
company can make a go at targetting software to cycle
tourists.

I totally agree.

Quoted message said:

But, the tools at hand are not that bad. Forget DeLorme;
their mapping software is slow, has a a terrible
interface, and has too many inaccuracies. Look at some of
the alternatives. Garmin's MapSource does distinguish
between paved and unpaved road, but their maps are only as
good as the GIS data they license, which is usually out of
date. And there is a wealth of cheap and/or free paper
maps to augment.

I use Delorme's products, and find them very accurate as
far as mileages go. Used with SAD2CUE you can generate a
route (cue) sheet. However, printed maps from the product
are about useless and this aspect needs vast improvement.
I mean, there is no way to print a reasonable long route
of about 50 miles that produces a usable map on an
8.5x11" page.

The paper Krebs Cycling maps in California are great and I
use them in conjunction with the Delorme products. They show
preferred routes, dirt
vs. paved roads, and steep grades. I wish Krebs would, at
least, offer his maps on a CD-ROM.

--
Mike DeMicco <[email hidden]> (Remove the
REMOVE_THIS from my email address to reply.)

Ken <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

Rick Warner <[email hidden]> wrote in
:"]news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

On the other hand, I think there are a lot of recreational
riders who would be interested in software that could
produce detailed and accurate route sheets for day rides.
The DeLorme Topo product can be very inaccurate regarding
small roads and total elevation gain. Judging by the
number of carbon fiber and titanium bikes I see on the
road, these folks have some amount of cash to burn.

I think this can be satisfied with the correct mix of
current products, at least to a large degree. Garmin's Topo
or MetroGuide are much better at dealing with roads than
DeLorme's; just do not get accurate elevation gain with any
of those. For the SF Bay area there is a free product called
Klimb by Keith Vetter (www.klimb.org); pretty nifty and easy
to use, but does allow all possible roads and directions.
Now whether the CF/Ti frame crowd would want to pay for
software, or for an upgraded component to save 0.36 g is an
open question ;-)

- rick

Ken <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

Rick Warner <[email hidden]> wrote in
:"]news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

Would it be nice? Yes. Useful? If done right.
Commercially viable? Absolutely not. Let's face it, the
cycle tourist community is relatively small. Further, it
is notoriously cheap.

The long distance touring community may be super cheap and
I agree that reliable paper maps are best for them.

On the other hand, I think there are a lot of recreational
riders who would be interested in software that could
produce detailed and accurate route sheets for day rides.

Absolutely. This type of route planning is especially
important for bicycle clubs, which easily could have dozens
of routes and route variations, if not hundreds, and a
steady influx of new members who need to learn the routes.

It would be nice to have some common framework into which
many bicyclists could usefully contribute their
observations while riding. Making it automatic would be
nice, such as having a super-smart bike computer which in
addition to the usual speed and riding time data could also
record GPS position, road smoothness, and motor traffic
levels (motor vehicles are disturbing enough to humans;
perhaps a computer could detect them by sound or magnetic
anomaly). Then everybody who rides a bike could become a
data-collection instrument. After each ride people could
upload their ride data (where they went lat/long/elev and
exactly when; how many bumps they hit; how many motor
vehicles went by) into software that would organize it with
GIS and statistical tools.

Many places have various ad hoc efforts to record and
publish bicycle route data. It would be nice to set up an
open-source software project to unify all these efforts. The
motivation to participate could be activism, because the
difficulty of route planning may be more of a discouragement
to wider participation in bicycling than many experienced
bicyclists realize. Most bicyclists understand their lives
would be better if there were more bikes and fewer cars on
the roads. So we all have a natural interest in promoting
more bicycling.

One has to wonder how many people tried bicycling but were
quickly terrorized off the roads because they stumbled onto
the most-familiar but heavily-traveled roads. Route
selection has an enormous impact on the quality of a ride,
easily as much as the details of equipment selection that
fill bicycle magazines. But route planning is something of
an unexplored frontier.

There are dozens of books about bicycling that tell you what
to ride, how to ride, what to wear, how to draft, how to
climb, and so on, but how many tell you where to ride? Most
literature for bicyclists assumes you already know where to
ride. But people don't automatically know this.

That's an extremely important question for the beginner, but
does not lend itself to being sold in a wrapper. Route
guides, by their nature, have small markets. Only a limited
number of people might buy a book of bicycle routes, because
a book cannot cover a large area. The typical consumer only
wants some particular subset of a very large dataset. A book
is also not very handy on the bike, so there is the
additional question of delivery.

Trying to earn profits on bicycle route planning is
questionable because the value is in the raw data, which
at present can only come from the contributions of
thousands of individual bicyclists, not from one guy
working in his garage.

The problem suggests a cooperative model, rather than a top-
down vendor-type model.

How could one individual commercial software vendor recruit
enough bicyclists to scout a comprehensive selection of
routes to cover an entire continent? As other contributors
to this thread pointed out, the bicyclist is much more
sensitive to road conditions than the motorist. A motorist
can be reasonably sure of handling any line on the map,
whereas the bicyclist needs to know a lot more than just
that a line connects two points.

Quoted message said:

The DeLorme Topo product can be very inaccurate regarding
small roads and total elevation gain.

It is obvious from using any mapping product (paper or
software) that the most important feature is to give users
simple methods to correct the data.

I have found by using free services such as MapQuest and
MapPoint that the most desirable routes for bicycling tend
to have the most errors and omissions on the map sites, and
the most problems with lookup by intersection names or
street addresses. Probably that is because bicyclists seek
out roads with the least amount of motor traffic, and those
would naturally have the lowest priority for the data
vendors who primarily cater to motorists.

The bottom line is that bicyclists will have to input some
of their own data.

The raw observation is being done already, however. For
example, around my town of Cincinnati, Ohio, local
bicyclists regularly ply almost all the suitable roads out
to a radius of at least 50 miles in all directions. The
problem is there is no simple way to convey one bicyclist's
personal observations of road conditions to all the other
bicyclists or potential bicyclists who could benefit. So a
lot of bicycle clubs or sympathetic government agencies have
various ad hoc approaches.

For example, here are some bicycle-specific maps
covering most of the counties I might reach on an out-and-
back day ride:

oki.orgbikeform.htmlOpen ↗

A long-distance bicycle tourist who planned to ride through
southwest Ohio would benefit greatly from these maps, but
how would he learn about them?

Since Cincinnati is not exactly a hotbed of bicycling
compared to other cities, I would have to suspect other
areas should have similar projects. Perhaps a useful start
would be for someone to try collecting all this data or at
least compiling links to all of it.

Quoted message said:

Judging by the number of carbon fiber and titanium bikes
I see on the road, these folks have some amount of cash
to burn.

It's easier to justify spending money on a bike that will
deliver a benefit every day for several years.

Route-planning software, on the other hand, tends to lose
its value after a bicyclist learns enough routes to support
routine local riding. It's like any other educational
product: once you are educated, you don't need it as much.

I have hacked around a bit with Perl and WWW::Mechanize to
write some programs I use to calculate cue sheets with
distances and estimated riding times for routes in my area.
I use WWW::Mechanize to "scrape" location and segment
information from MapQuest and MapPoint. This lets me work
around the artificial restrictions of the free map sites and
calculate my own routes. I can also manually correct segment
distances by riding them with my own well-calibrated
cyclometer.

With several hundred locations (mostly intersections) and
several hundred segments connecting the locations, I can
generate route plans fairly easily. My method is still a bit
weak on the data input, mostly because the map sites are so
flaky when you look up lightly-traveled locations. I have to
rely on some manual guessing to find street address
approximations of street intersections the map sites cannot
identify by name. Presumably a program such as Microsoft
Streets and Trips would make this easier, because it would
let you identify locations by clicking on them rather than
trying to guess the magic permutations on possible street
names that the map sites expect. Problems can arise, for
example, when a road name contains words that the map site
wants you to abbreviate on input (such as Ten Mile Road,
Mounts Road, etc.). Often a map site refuses to recognize as
text input the same road name it displays on a map.

I found it helps to get a good paper map showing 5-digit ZIP
code boundaries (such as the Rand McNally Streetfinder
books), because the map sites tend to work best when you
look up locations by ZIP code.

-- Daniel Mocsny

(The Danimal) said:

It would be nice to have some common framework into which
many bicyclists could usefully contribute their
observations while riding. Making it automatic would be
nice, such as having a super-smart bike computer which in
addition to the usual speed and riding time data could
also record GPS position, road smoothness, and motor
traffic levels (motor vehicles are disturbing enough to
humans; perhaps a computer could detect them by sound or
magnetic anomaly). Then everybody who rides a bike could
become a data-collection instrument. After each ride
people could upload their ride data (where they went
lat/long/elev and exactly when; how many bumps they hit;
how many motor vehicles went by) into software that would
organize it with GIS and statistical tools.

Well, there are GPS units that can do much of this sort of
thing already available. The problem is finding the desktop-
side solution to automagically capture this into a map
with annotations for the subjective data. However, there
is at least some possibility of this with an already-
available tool.

Quoted message said:

The problem suggests a cooperative model, rather than a
top-down vendor-type model.

How could one individual commercial software vendor
recruit enough bicyclists to scout a comprehensive
selection of routes to cover an entire continent?

Welcome to open source free software (free as in speech, not
necesarily free as in beer). This package was alrady
mentioned by another poster.

klimb.comklimb.comOpen ↗ presents a free, freely modifiable
and freely distributable mapping package. It's not quite
ready to do what you're proposing, but it looks to me like
the framework is there to make it possible. It'd take
someone who can speak tk/tcl fluently, of course, be even
without that there is already capacity to add to the
existing database.

Hi
I'm developing an open-source, totally free cycling map software,
named CycleAtlas.
The home page is:
cycleatlas.sourceforge.netcycleatlas.sourceforge.netOpen ↗

The program description is: CycleAtlas is a free, open-
source cycling diary based on a road atlas. It can be used
both for store or for plan new rides. It permits to create
and store planimetry, profile and route time table of
rides. A map editor is included, in order to create custom
road maps.

CycleAtlas is a java application, so can works both on win
and Linux. Actually it's available in 2 branches, stable
(version 0.8) and development( version 1.0). You can see
features at cycleatlas.sourceforge.netindex.phOpen ↗
p/ListFeatures .

Note that this is only a mapping software and maps (roads)
must be created by the user. Only a simple map, covering a
small portion of Italy, is included. Using the devel (1.0)
version, it's quite simple to add roads in a map. The
program can automatically download expedia or mapblast
maps for an area, that can be used as a base to draw road
path. The road profile is automatically computed, using
elevation data.

I hope that this software can be useful for you.

Regards
Maner

[email hidden] (markbajek) wrote in message
news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

Does the demand for a mapping software program exist that
is specific to cyclists or recreational travelers? Either
as an add-on to existing Topo software or Street level
mapping? (.....)

(maner) said:

I'm developing an open-source, totally free cycling map
software, named CycleAtlas. The home page is:
cycleatlas.sourceforge.netcycleatlas.sourceforge.netOpen ↗

Great!

Quoted message said:

The program description is: CycleAtlas is a free, open-
source cycling diary based on a road atlas. It can be used
both for store or for plan new rides. It permits to create
and store planimetry, profile and route time table of
rides. A map editor is included, in order to create custom
road maps.

CycleAtlas is a java application, so can works both on win
and Linux.

Not so great. :-( The performance of Java sucks on many
platforms, and the applications are typically butt-ugly
to look at.

Have you checked out KLIMB already mentioned?

(The Danimal) said:

There are dozens of books about bicycling that tell you
what to ride, how to ride, what to wear, how to draft, how
to climb, and so on, but how many tell you where to ride?
Most literature for bicyclists assumes you already know
where to ride. But people don't automatically know this.

There are dozens of books about where to ride, too. Search
bn.com for the word bicycle along with the state where you
want to ride. I searched bn with the terms bicycle rhode for
Rhode Island routes and it returned 5 relevant books. I have
one of those books, and have another out from the library.

Additionally, you can look outside of books with 'bicycle'
in their title. I have a book of scenic country drives whose
routes I intend to use for bicycling.
--
Rick Onanian

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

CycleAtlas is a java application, so can works both on
win and Linux.

Not so great. :-( The performance of Java sucks on many
platforms, and the applications are typically butt-ugly
to look at.

Yes, but there also a lot of advantages.You write once and
generally works for different platform, without
modifications. The development time is reduced (50%, I've
recently read in a book written by a expert C developer).
It's slower than a C program, but I think that this is not a
problem for CycleAtlas. Version 0.8 run on a Pentium I
(until 15 months ago, I've developing using it). But, if I
must choose between a word-processor written in C and one,
with same features written in Java, then I decide for the C,
native OS version...

So, if someone would make a porting of CycleAtlas in C, it's
welcome. But this is not one of my goals. There are a lot of
work to do.

Quoted message said:

Have you checked out KLIMB already mentioned?

Yes, I've already seen it. It contains some interesting
things. In my site, there is a list of links to other
interesting cycling projects.

Regards
Maner