This interesting new feature adds “By Bike” to the car, walking, and transit option already available for finding directions on Google Maps. Testing it around Bend a bit, it seems to do a decent job of avoiding the hills and many of the busy roads around my house (I live near Pilot Butte) and finding alternative routes, but I’d be interested in what some of the bike commuters (Monkey Boy?) in the area think about what it’s telling you. If I were to bike the commute from here to my office in Sunriver it’d be an interesting ride, especially considering I don’t think those roads that Google Maps recommends riding are even there or ridable this time of year.
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Not useful for me. I just punched in my commute from home to work and it suggested nasty intersections and didn’t avoid the hills or busy roads.
I guess if you had no clue about the area you were going to be biking in, it might have some value. I guess part of why I find it useless is I’ve been fine tuning the best route for quite some time. 😉
I also plugged in my home-to-work directions and saw mixed results. I was pretty impressed with the way it skirted Pilot Butte on this side of town, but then it routed me onto an awkward street crossing and one of the busiest streets on the West side (though flat, and perhaps not busy by city standards). I have heard that it may incorporate trails on some routes, but I haven’t fiddled with it long enough to see an example of that.