A better mapping feature (you)

China is no longer the mystery it once was when it comes to getting around. There are plenty of decent maps and online mapping services today that provide good coverage of most of the available roads. Sure, it's a bit tough with all the new construction, but overall, it's quite easy to get around compared to five years ago.

There's a part of me that enjoys the discovery of "parts unknown", but there's also a part of me that has limited time and resources when it comes to travel, and would like to make the most of my time on the road. Tackling 65 kilometers of dusty construction might make for an entertaining adventure story, but it does take its toll on both rider and equipment. This is part of my "rewards and punishment" theory, that China punishes you with 1 kilometer of hell for every 10 kilometers of heaven.

During my recent 20,000 kilometer journey across America, I never experienced more than a few kilometers of bad roads. Not because America doesn't have bad roads, it's just that America has a brutally efficient information network with real time data on almost every kilometer of pavement. I used a piece of software called Microsoft Streets and Trips that was able to check my daily route, telling me exactly where construction would be and how to avoid it. My Garmin GPS would contact an online service before plotting any route and automatically avoid traffic jams and congestion.

Being that China hasn't even figured out how to program stop lights to keep traffic moving, I'm not holding my breath that this information network is coming here anytime soon. Yes, I know that MAP ABC shows traffic congestion in the big cities, but it's useless information if your GPS system isn't connected to it and automatically routes you around it. So there's not a lot we can do about bad traffic, but there may be a little we can do about bad routes.

While I was crossing the USA, I discovered a couple websites that really helped with my daily route plan.

www.sundaymorningrides.com and www.motorcycleroads.us

There are others available, but if you check those two out you will get the idea. Basically, people are building a giant map of the USA featuring great motorcycle roads. They use a simple, color coded, classification system like "scenic", "twisty", "sweepers", or "unpaved". You zoom in on an area of the country, choose a route, and with a couple clicks you can download it in various GPS formats. I discovered some fantastics roads that made our trip far more rewarding, and thought maybe we could work on something similar for China at MyChinaMoto.

I'm not sure about how much coding went into these sights or if there is some kind of existing software package that could be purchased to add this feature to this site. I do know that CrazyCarl already has enough on his plate to deal with, so I'm just putting this out there as an idea. I think it would be great if people would start sharing the route data from their journeys and helping each other avoid the crap while discovering the beauty.

Thoughts?

Cheers!
ChinaV

ChinaV,

Great topic and thoughtful post! I've been thinking along the same lines, and I think I posted a while back about an iPhone app called Greatest Road ("I just found the greatest road...") that allows users to enter, share and review what the developer calls "stretches" anywhere on the planet. Sounds similar to the SundayMorning and m/c roads sites you mentioned.

What's critical for us in China is to choose the best platform and get as many people as possible posting there, so as to create a central repository of road intelligence ("watch out for the girl in row 12 window seat on the No.225 bus near ZhangPing. She's liable to hurl without looking.").

Just the riding that you, Felix and Pfaelzer have done in Fujian/Guangdong in the last two weeks would be a huge addition to such a database.

being that i'm totally all thumbs with electronic navigation, i'll recuse myself from the decision about which platform to use. I'll do my best to learn how to use it and enter whatever ride intelligence I can provide.

cheers!

Another thought I had on this would be including all of the parts markets and motorcycle shops members go to. That way new members wouldn't have to wade through old posts looking for places to buy motorcycles, accessories, spare parts and the beer establishments where bikers tend to hang out. We could even include the places where you get registered and licensed.

Cheers!
ChinaV

Sounds like a great platform and very useful tool for biking in china. I would very happily contribute to it, some of the roads i rode recently were no doubt amongst the best riding roads in china and absolutley must be shared.

I wouldn't have any idea where to start with such a project though. I have no experience making editable web-based applications, really none. Who's gonna be able to do something like that?

I know other platforms, Drupal to be specific does have such a plugin. Dont know about vbulletin thought. This should be a feature request!

ChinaV,
it seems an excellent idea to create our own map of routes, scenic rides, place marks and other bike related pois :thumbsup:

However, even the best database, platform or software is useless without proper input and regular updates of the content. This is the major concern when establishing such a database in China, where things change so fast.
- The bike or parts shop was here a month ago, replaced by a high rise apartment building three months later :eekers:
- Where you rode the dirt road pass last spring, you'll find a 4 lane expressway today - forbidden for bikes :gun_bandana:

Sure, it is worth a try and I'd also be willing to contribute to it.

I'm in...

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Originally Posted by chinabiker

ChinaV,
it seems an excellent idea to create our own map of routes, scenic rides, place marks and other bike related pois :thumbsup:
However, even the best database, platform or software is useless without proper input and regular updates of the content. This is the major concern when establishing such a database in China, where things change so fast.
- The bike or parts shop was here a month ago, replaced by a high rise apartment building three months later :eekers:
- Where you rode the dirt road pass last spring, you'll find a 4 lane expressway today - forbidden for bikes :gun_bandana:
Sure, it is worth a try and I'd also be willing to contribute to it.

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Exactly. Things here are constantly changing and evolving, so it makes it imperative that any mapping, is kept current by being constantly kept up-to-date. This will involve those of us interested in such a project making an effort to retrace routes periodically. I'm in as well, though having travelled extensively in Zhejaing specifically, there are some routes that I might only get to once, twice or three times per year. That may not be enough with the dizzying amount of change going on...

I'm in too, at least as soon as I have the bike ! ;-)

Why not create a "Ride Reports" or "Ride Routes" thread (a sticky) where everybody could link or upload the maps they used for what they considered a beautiful road.
I'm really itching to get started with Zhejiang roads to begin with, and would love to know where to find the beautiful mountain routes you guys are talking about.
I'll be adding info regularly too. This thread could also list the best maps or GPS navigators available in English.

In the same spirit, we could start a sticky about everything a newbie like me has to know (1 sticky for Beijing, 1 for Shanghai, etc.) : bike shops, biker gear shops, regulations, licences, etc.
There are a lot of information in this forum, but one has to spend a long time to colect it all...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Fred

I'm in too, at least as soon as I have the bike ! ;-)

Why not create a "Ride Reports" or "Ride Routes" thread (a sticky) where everybody could link or upload the maps they used for what they considered a beautiful road.
I'm really itching to get started with Zhejiang roads to begin with, and would love to know where to find the beautiful mountain routes you guys are talking about.
I'll be adding info regularly too. This thread could also list the best maps or GPS navigators available in English.

In the same spirit, we could start a sticky about everything a newbie like me has to know (1 sticky for Beijing, 1 for Shanghai, etc.) : bike shops, biker gear shops, regulations, licences, etc.
There are a lot of information in this forum, but one has to spend a long time to colect it all...

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Hi Fred, looking forward to your participation when you get a bike. From what Felix tells us, Zhejiang has some mighty fine roads.

The reason we don't make these things into threads is because the format of a forum is not really the perfect tool for the job. The threads would get old, people would post off topic babble, and newcomers would fail to search the threads.

The map idea is designed to reduce two of the big issues you bring up.

#1 Where to ride - The map would show you different kinds of rides, linked to ride reports about the particular area.

#2 Important places - Where to buy bike stuff, register a bike, get a license or meet bikers in specific cities. This would help new people with a few of the big issues they immediately face here in China.

Since the map would be powered by a dynamic database, it would be much easier to keep the data relevant.

I'm all for a good sticky, but usually you will see we all tend to go "off topic" when it comes to any given issue here :rolleyes1:.

Good luck scoring your new ride, I'm sure you will have a blast.

Cheers!
ChinaV

Maybe we can make a "private" google map with the rides and descriptions.
When registering to MCM the password & link will be given.

Could that work?

That is possible. We can make links in the main menu bar show up only for registered members. Problem is working the link out in google maps. One of the main features of the type of service CV is talking about is the ability to comment and easily update info. I"ll smell around and see what's available.

CC

Thats the can do attitude we need here :thumbsup:

http://www.roads2go.com

Isn't this exactly what we were looking for? I will register lets see...

I registered today and it is working good and easy! Martin from Poland has created a fine site there. maybe you can make a kind of joined venture with him so that we, lets say, only post it one time on roads2go and can see the same post on MCM, similar to video posting

http://www.roads2go.com/route/4690

but there should be something more than single roads. in the end, we need them all collected on a China-Map. how to do this? I don`t know

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Originally Posted by andre555

http://www.roads2go.com

Isn't this exactly what we were looking for? I will register lets see...

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by SabineHartmann

I registered today and it is working good and easy! Martin from Poland has created a fine site there. maybe you can make a kind of joined venture with him so that we, lets say, only post it one time on roads2go and can see the same post on MCM, similar to video posting

http://www.roads2go.com/route/4690

but there should be something more than single roads. in the end, we need them all collected on a China-Map. how to do this? I don`t know

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Yep, that could be what we are looking for. It is still in beta, slow, but seems on the right track. Let's see.

Not sure if any of you guys have looked at this one... spotwalla it has a few features that are useful. I've not had time to play around with it as yet. I use my GarminXT and Mapsource which works well...

http://www.dualsportmaps.com/
just found this but didn't have a chance to play with it yet ..

For anyone trying to use http://www.roads2go.com/ and never gets past "loading maps" .. disable adblock..
only motokai and Andre up there so far..

Disabled adblock, still not loading for me. I put a few roads up there last year but have a few more i'd like to ad if only i could get on...

Seems like we have a winner >> http://www.wikiloc.com/

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Originally Posted by slabo

Seems like we have a winner >> http://www.wikiloc.com/

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+1
I like the look of the site, and there is also a China page and if one looks to the scrolls down the left side of the webpage there are range of quick links e.g. bicycling, hiking (tramping for those from the commonwealth) and motorcycling amongst other types of activity trails. I see Chinabiker has uploaded some trails/tracks, so I need to join, work out how to upload my zillion miles of waypoints or points of interest (favourite places), as I have only a few actual tracks saved onto the Garm1nXT apps.