Event: The January Board Meeting of the Arizona Bicycle Club (ABC). The public is welcome.
Date: 7:00 PM, January 7th 2009
Location: Amerischool at 1333 W Camelback Rd. Phoenix Az 85013
Notes: Following the business portion of the meeting (around 7:30) there will be a presentation by Neill Thompson on Route Mapping featuring TrimbleOutdoors.
Overview
I think that when bicyclists show up for a club ride, one of the things they are likely to expect is a route map and/or directions. The collective knowledge of local routes and conditions is one of a bike club's biggest assets. Historically, that tribal wisdom has been difficult to document, store, maintain and share. For the past two and a half years, I've struggled with finding ways to produce route maps for club rides. My primary goal was to produce a quality map. I searched for tools and techniques that not only worked for me, but that other people might adopt. Initially, I never considered that some riders might want to download route information to their GPS unit or cell phone so that they could be prompted for turns. Today, that seems like a reasonable request. Producing a quality printed map is still a vital goal, however, the problem of managing a collection of routes is equally important. The relatively recent proliferation of GPS devices and geographic data has created new opportunities. Organizations such as Google.com, Bicycling.com and TrimbleOutdoors.com have joined forces to provide solutions to these challenges. To take advantage of this capability, a GPS device or expensive software is not required for riders nor ride leaders. I am planning to demonstrate the use of free Internet based software from TrimbleOutdoors.com for route mapping. Additionally, I will be demonstrating ways ABC could manage a collection of favorite routes. Looking at a route using Google Earth puts it in a whole new perspective.
