Author Topic: Map Making - Bike & Hike Trails Advice  (Read 1156 times)

Cheese Head

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Map Making - Bike & Hike Trails Advice
« on: March 24, 2012, 04:43:19 PM »
Team

Each Sat & Sun I mountain bike 2-3 hours with 1-3 friends from my house around Bush Park here in Houston and I have a Garmin Forerunner 200 which has a GPS and logs the routes. In addition to all the main paths we've found all sorts of old trails that we keep clear of deadfall etc and I'd like other bikers and dog walkers to also know about these trails to help keep them open. To do that I'd like to build a map of these trails. I'm thinking that the best way to do this is to make a pdf map that people could download and print out by downloading a map or from screen shots of Bing or Google Maps and via PowerPoint adding dirt, gravel, asphalt, and concrete trail routes and notes of bridges an landmarks etc then printing to a pdf.

I've never done this before so any advice on best system and way of doing this is appreciated . . . John.

PS: Probably there is some group in UK that does this type of thing of keeping the old common walkways open, anyone know what that's called or a popular website?

Cheese Head

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Re: Map Making - Bike & Hike Trails Advice
« Reply #1 on: March 24, 2012, 04:51:13 PM »
High level map downloaded from Bing Maps, max size is 800x800 pixles so I'll have to stitch together lots of small pieces.

Offline DeejayDebi

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Re: Map Making - Bike & Hike Trails Advice
« Reply #2 on: March 24, 2012, 07:07:37 PM »
The are several free GIS (geographic information systems) mapping programs available online that are pretty sophisticated!

http://software.geocomm.com/

This one sounds really good.
http://mapwindow4.codeplex.com/releases/view/72385#DownloadId=274373

zenith1

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Re: Map Making - Bike & Hike Trails Advice
« Reply #3 on: March 24, 2012, 08:56:03 PM »
John have a look at these website:

www.Mapmyride.com

www.strava.com

I use them both for my road cycling and I have friends that use them for mountain biking. In addition to all the statistical data they collect they also have neat mapping features. I use my android phone with their apps and they automatically at the end of the ride save all the data from the ride as well as a map that can be printed or shared online.
For the basic use of the sites they are both free. For some of the advanced features there is a monthly user fee.

Map my ride also has a neat live application that allows remote user that you have granted permission to follow your ride live.