1. • CommentAuthorBen Shirley
   • CommentTimeApr 9th 2008 edited

    
   Hi I've been using cyclistnexus.com and I just came across this site. I wonder if anybody has used both and can comment on which is better and why. Bikely seems to have more routes for one thing.
   Thanks
2. • CommentAuthormetzenberg
   • CommentTimeApr 11th 2008 edited

    
   I had a look at CycleNexus. It's good to see that there is a competition, and CycleNexus has a promising start, but they would have a lot to do to catch up with Bikely right now. In particular, I couldn't figure out how to edit a route once I finished it. That's pretty basic.
   
   CycleNexus has a diferent approach to cue sheets. You are supposed to use a slider to add them in after you have entered a route. While I find this hard to do, one of the most difficult things about the bikely interface is picking the point where you want to add a note. I can't even pick a point on Bikely unless I enlarge down to the very highest resolution.
   
   The CycleNexus interface for entering routes by hand is quite good, and gives you the full screen if you need it. They implement multiple levels of undo!
   
   I find Bikely's "follow the route" implementation almost unusable because it lacks a rationally designed undo. I hope that somebody at Bikely will look at both CycleNexus.com and GPSies.com.
   
   I like the way CycleNexus.com allows you to define the initial view you see of the route. Sometimes Bikely defaults to a view that is much too large, or that shows satellite instead of a map.
   
   Howard
3. • CommentAuthorBlueMM
   • CommentTimeApr 11th 2008

    
   metzenberg, I believe Bikely shows the route in satellite or map view depending on what view the author was in when they last saved it. I've gone back to some of my routes to change them to Map, so people on slow connections don't get a rude shock.
   
   AFAIK, the position & zoom level is calculated, based on browser window size.
4. • CommentAuthorBen Shirley
   • CommentTimeApr 11th 2008 edited

    
   metzenberg, thanks for the insightful comments. I agree with you on the pros and cons of cyclistnexus.com. I've also found some of the same frustrations with bikely (like no undo). Thanks for mentioning GPSies.com. I'll have to check it out. It's too bad to see that so many of these sites have different short comings and haven't learned more form each other.
   
   You know what I'd really like to see is a site that uses the native google maps for giving directions from one point to another. That's my favorite way to save bike routes now. The best feature is the ability to drag a point from your route to another road and get rerouted there automatically. Also google maps creates a cue sheet in the form of directions for you automatically as you create the map.
   
   I gather that the google maps API doesn't allow programs to interface with the full functionality of native google maps, but my idea is why not just have a site that can save links to these custom google map directions in a database and then display the native google maps page in a frame within the biking web site?
5. • CommentAuthorBen Shirley
   • CommentTimeApr 11th 2008

    
   Oh wow, GPSies is nice. It works almost as well as the native google maps routing. It still seems to have a problem with placing route points on existing routes (for out and back or overlapping type routes). It also doesn't create the cue sheet for you as the native google maps does.
6. • CommentAuthormetzenberg
   • CommentTimeApr 13th 2008

    
   Ben,
   
   I think CycleNexus has been around a while, and it doesn't really have enough activitiy around it to challenge Bikely at the moment. But GPSIES.com is very nicely done. It is missing a lot, but it does a bunch of things much better than Bikely. It has a better page layout. I would be happy to talk on the phone with the Bikely.com folks about where they are vulnerable.
   
   I worked on a route over there, a long one. I loved the responsiveness of their asynchronous Javascript coding. They have some rough spots, but they have got beyond the one user action equals one database call phase of developing a good interface.
   
   Bikely and it's parents need some user interface and design work.
   
   It would be nice to see the advertising placed better on the page. I realize that advertising is needed. But I would be delighted to pay for the right to display my rides without advertising.
   
   Howard
7. • CommentAuthorBen Shirley
   • CommentTimeApr 14th 2008

    
   To continue with my native google maps idea, I found this zoho database service and made a test example of my idea to use native google maps directions and routing functions to save and share routes: http://creator.zoho.com/umbilicalbungee/bicycle-routes/view/1/ . I think I may have convinced the guys at http://www.cyclohub.com (who are just getting started) to try this model. Google maps seems like it is close to having an ideal solution with their My Maps and collaboration functions, but unfortunately you can't seem to share routing and direction information yet.

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