Route Builder / Mapping system - we want your input please

[maikhoepfel]

James, it's looking good! The map overlays work for me now. That's quite helpful stuff; I'm new in the UK and still have to figure out where the best places to go are. Cheers for that!

I just tried searching for accommodation in Leeds and Bristol, and it couldn't find any. I figure there might not be any, but it's surprising that it wouldn't display accommodation nearby then.

 

[dsb79]

Works okay on ipad, but this as an app would be awesome.

 

[MotoGoLoco]

Works okay on ipad, but this as an app would be awesome.

Funny you should say that...

V2 is literally a baw-hair away now, with an App version hard on it's heels. I'll keep you guys posted as soon as we're good to go, as there might be another round of user testing needed before we launch it with gusto

Cheers,
James

 

[MotoGoLoco]

So... How would you like to try our all new motorcycle route builder then?

It'd be awesome if you could try creating a couple of routes, saving them (you'll need to register to save/export routes, but it's free and takes 20 seconds) etc. Basically get stuck in and let me know how you get on!

This is the proper, full version now - so whilst there might be the odd bug we've yet to unearth, by and large it should be good to go.

Thanks again to everyone who contributed with feedback and bug-spotting on the BETA version, we wouldn't have been able to come up with this without you.

 

[Jumpjim]

I've been building routes in google maps my places for a week long tour of South west Ireland and have been struggling to export them to Garmin GPS's so I'll have a crack at this and see how I get on.

Is there any way to import a route, either from Google maps my places or as a GPX route?

Edit to say: been having a play on my ipad (I'm away currently and no laptop)... I'm probably your target audience as I plan routes for groups of between 6 and 10 of us. The problem has been getting these routes in a format that I can send out to the troops, particularly Garmin. Upto now I have been using a website called GPSVisualiser (http://www.gpsvisualizer.com) to convert google maps routes and export to GPX files.

I've been using the GPSMotionX app on the iPhone with imported GPX routes as I use my iphone for sat Nav on the bike and overall it works fine as a moving map but doesn't give turn by turn directions. I would LOVE to be able to import the route into the tomtom app on the iPhone. Can I do that with your website? Currently it comes up and says it is designed to work on larger screens so I can't get to the "Add to tomtom" point on my iphone...arghhhh!

If the answer is yes the it would be the holy grail of bike planning software where I can plan the routes on google maps with all the inherent advantages of POIs etc., import the route into my iphone AND send Garmin files to my mates with Zumos... If it works then expect a long term subscription from me!

Another idea would be collaborative editing... When the route is shared have a tick box for "allow collaborative editing". People could then tweak the route if they have any ideas of places to go, then show the edit overlaid on the existing route in a different colour with a keep/reject button to either allow or reject the route edit. You could take that to a whole new level with a user definable trip page where you could set up a group trip with day by day itinerary, display of each days route, maybe allow chats as to places to visit, and tie it in with an email mailing/notification list which would allow the group leader to push out a notification of changes to the whole group?

 

[Malvern_Beemer]

This really has come on. It may even tempt me away from Tyre!

 

[Jumpjim]

Been having a more in depth play with this and I'm a bit disappointed overall I have to say.

It looks pretty so I created a 350m route which is our first longish day out on our tour heading up towards the ferry at Holyhead and then saved it.

Unfortunately it doesn't come up under my routes from the account page (And there's no way I can see to get to the my routes page from the main mapping UI??), when I share it with someone the link just links into a blank page with no route on it.

I then tried exporting to GPX and the GPX route just gives the locations of the intermediate waypoints and nothing for the route you've actually planned.

It appears to still need a lot of work!

Back to "My Maps" on Google maps and GPSVisualiser for me for the moment unfortunately.....

 

[MotoGoLoco]

I've been building routes in google maps my places for a week long tour of South west Ireland and have been struggling to export them to Garmin GPS's so I'll have a crack at this and see how I get on.

Is there any way to import a route, either from Google maps my places or as a GPX route?

We're working on an upload tool to let you import existing route files straight up to MotoGoLoco, not quite ready yet but we're on it!

Edit to say: been having a play on my ipad (I'm away currently and no laptop)... I'm probably your target audience as I plan routes for groups of between 6 and 10 of us. The problem has been getting these routes in a format that I can send out to the troops, particularly Garmin. Upto now I have been using a website called GPSVisualiser (http://www.gpsvisualizer.com) to convert google maps routes and export to GPX files.

I've been using the GPSMotionX app on the iPhone with imported GPX routes as I use my iphone for sat Nav on the bike and overall it works fine as a moving map but doesn't give turn by turn directions. I would LOVE to be able to import the route into the tomtom app on the iPhone. Can I do that with your website? Currently it comes up and says it is designed to work on larger screens so I can't get to the "Add to tomtom" point on my iphone...arghhhh!

If the answer is yes the it would be the holy grail of bike planning software where I can plan the routes on google maps with all the inherent advantages of POIs etc., import the route into my iphone AND send Garmin files to my mates with Zumos... If it works then expect a long term subscription from me!

Because of all the jQuery that's going on, behind the scenes (and because the screen sizes are so small) the standard maps when used iPhone / Android phones is a bit of a pig, but as above, we're working on the app for a proper fix, not just a bodgy workaround.

Another idea would be collaborative editing... When the route is shared have a tick box for "allow collaborative editing". People could then tweak the route if they have any ideas of places to go, then show the edit overlaid on the existing route in a different colour with a keep/reject button to either allow or reject the route edit. You could take that to a whole new level with a user definable trip page where you could set up a group trip with day by day itinerary, display of each days route, maybe allow chats as to places to visit, and tie it in with an email mailing/notification list which would allow the group leader to push out a notification of changes to the whole group?

Love this suggestion, thanks - definitely something people would find useful, so consider it firmly on the 'harass the developers' pile!

 

[MotoGoLoco]

I *think* I saw my colleague (Polly) typing up a reply to you about this, so please let me know if you didn't get it - all of the above should be sorted now, and if not we'd love to pick your brains to see what went wrong.

We're fully committed to building a kick-ass mapping system, and input from guys like yourself is vital in getting there, so please keep it coming. Good or bad, we do read it all and we do appreciate it!

Cheers,
James @ MotoGoLoco

 

[foggie]

Another thought, this time on positional format

On your accommodation pages you give quite a clear Lat/Long but it will not copy/pasta to mapsource in that format

for instance:
N 55 18.939, W 2 21.696 would be better N55 18.939 W2 21.696

or better still use decimal N55.31565 W2.36160

You might as well get it right now as change it all later

I can't find out how to get Motogoloco to accept any sort of Latitude/Longitude format location. Only seems to want to work with postcodes?

I'm trying to build routes around UK's highest roads : http://www.ocd.org.uk/uk/HighestRoads.html

Apart from that, I had my first virtually flawless route last weekend. That's after years of fighting with Tyre/Basecamp etc.