Share the Fun of Sunday Morning Rides

February 22, 2007 By: Cyrena Respini-Irwin

Most drivers rely on their in-vehicle GPS units to determine the shortest distance between their location and destination, relishing any route that gets them to Point B faster. It's just the opposite, however, for fun-seeking motorcyclists. "The straightest, fastest road is often not the road you want to take," said Abel Lin, cofounder and CTO of Sunday Morning Rides (SMR). "You want the twisty road through the mountains."

The SMR Web portal and mapping tool were created by enthusiasts who wanted a forum to share those tortuous routes, plus a way to enhance their records with relevant details. According to Lin, "it really came together because we were looking for new rides to go on, and we couldn't find any comprehensive resource online, so we figured we'd try to put one together ourselves."

Judging by the response, they weren't the only riders seeking such a resource. "Since we launched two weeks ago," Lin reported, "we've had about 20,000 page views and about 3,000 visitors . . . and over 200 downloads of rides." The site caters to explorers of paved and unpaved terrain alike by offering rides in both Road and Adventure categories. Users can upload and download GPS files; contribute waypoints (e.g., points of interest), descriptions, reviews, images, and video; and customize their favorite rides. Bikers who lack the equipment to capture rides in GPS format can either use SMR's online ride builder or can simply e-mail directions to the site editors.

Clickable icons annotate this 19-mile ride through Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area in Nevada, offering riders more information about points of interest and warning them about a tricky turn in the road. In addition to this map view, the SMR Mapper can also display the track layered over satellite imagery or a topographic map.

Currently, the SMR Mapper interface is based on the Google Maps API. In addition, there are two WMS (Web Map Services) layers -- NEXRAD weather radar and U.S. Geological Survey topological reference maps -- as well as GPS tracks and waypoints in GPX (GPS eXchange Format). The site also connects to various services such as Yahoo! for real-time traffic and weather updates. For data download, users can currently select from GPX, Garmin (GDB), and Google Earth (KML) formats. Lin explained that SMR is "not completely tied in to any specific software component; architecturally, we can swap in pretty much any GIS component we choose. As our data management evolves, for example, we may need to consider richer GIS interfaces that natively support queries from spatial databases."

Although SMR is currently in beta, the full version should be ready in mid-March. Users will see little difference in the interface; the real changes will lie in the organization of data on the back end, and the addition of commercial waypoints. Business owners will be able to add their restaurants, gas stations, and other pit stops to the maps, just as community members currently note points of interest.

In addition to all its benefits for bikers, SMR is, in Lin's words, "a good showcase of how GIS and GPS technologies can be practically utilized in an everyday application . . . especially something like motorcycling, which is probably not thought of as a traditional GIS application." It's those same technologies that help all of us in the GIS community, riders and non-riders alike, to live out the SMR motto: "Own the road, but share the journey!"

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