I am sure that many of you are already aware of this but I wanted to mention a very handy tool that I have been using lately for planning my bike rides ~ either on bike trails, road trips or around town.

What I am referring to is, of course, Google Maps in combination with their zoom and  Street View options. Google has put a lot of resources into their mapping applications and they are really quite advanced and useful at this time, especially for bike trails and routes.

Google Street View
© 2013 Google

I still use hard copy and PDF maps to find new trails that I may want to ride and I also have my Bike GPS computer (with mapping) for reviewing where I have been (and for a little help when I am out riding) but I have been using Google Maps more and more for checking out the bike trails that I am going to ride (or have already ridden).

The reason that this subject came up again for me is because we are having some problems with our vehicles and I have been using my bike more for trips around town and may need to ride to the Tour of Elk Grove (TOEG, that I mentioned in the post below) this weekend.

I already know of a lot of good routes and connecting bike trails for trips around town but there are times that I may need to go somewhere different or a little farther (like the TOEG) and it is nice to zoom in and especially to use the Street View option to check out what the roads or trails actually look like. You also have the satellite view to check out the terrain and surroundings.

If you live in populated areas that Google has photographed then you can get the Street View for the entire trip. For bike trails and routes in less populated area you can still follow the routes and zoom in for quite a bit of detail and Google includes many major bike trails.

Anyway, for my latest situation, I was planning a ride from Palatine, Il to Elk Grove Village, Il and there are busy roads and expressways to deal with. What I found out (via Google Maps) is that I can use a combination of bike trails and sidewalks, that run alongside a few major roads, for the entire trip. I was also able to verify that there was a sidewalk over Interstate 90 (where I wanted to cross) and a way to get under route 53 in a few locations and I could see how wide the underpasses were.

I don’t like riding on major roads or highways in this area and prefer the sidewalks myself if there is no other good option. The problem on longer trips is that you often run into a gap somewhere where there is no trail or sidewalk and only a narrow road without much of a shoulder and cars zipping by at high speeds (that’s not my idea of fun (or even of good survival!)).

With Google Maps and the Street View option, I was able to Virtually Ride my entire planned route on my PC before getting out there and taking chances or risking my life on dangerous roads.

Hints for Using Google Maps and Street View for Bike Routes

For those of you who are already proficient with Google Maps you may want to skip this part although there still may be something helpful here.

The real keys to using Google Maps and Street View for your bike routes is in zooming in to the correct level and selecting Street View when you have the option and when you need to see the actual surroundings.

Step One, of course, is to go to Google Maps. For this, just go to Google and click on MAPS at the top of the page.

Step Two is to find the bike trail that you are looking for or the route that you are planning to take. This is basically just typical search queries.

For popular bike trails, you can often enter the bike trail name in the Google search box to get to the trail. For trails and routes in a specific area, just search for the town (or other more specific location) in the search box. For a route between 2 locations just select Get Directions and enter the 2 locations. This will give you driving directions on the road but it can be a good starting point for finding the best bike route.

The Final Step is to zoom in to see the local roads and bike routes. You may need to zoom in as far as you can before the bike routes appear or sometimes you can see the bike trails zoomed out a little in order to get a bigger view. For a longer ride you will probably need to zoom in and out many times as needed.

To see the Street View or Photos of a Location, you can select the little orange man (icon) that is above the zoom bar and drag it to the map area (or if you zoom in as far as you can and if there is a street view available it will also appear that way). Once you are in Street View you can navigate through your route or get a 360 degree view of the area. For those of you who are familiar with this feature, you know how cool this is!

If you are in a less populated area that does not have Street View available, you can still zoom in as far as you can and usually see the bike trails and local streets and there are often individual photos posted to view the area. To see if there are photos available select the little orange man process (described above) once again. These can give you a visual look at the area but they do not give you as much detail as the actual Street View option.

In some cases, you may need to switch to Satellite View and zoom in as far as you can to get a good look at the area. Satellite View also gives you much more detail in more populated areas but hopefully this will keep improving and maybe at some point we’ll have good satellite views and street views of the smallest country roads.

At any rate, I have found Google Maps to be extremely helpful for finding, reviewing and planning bike routes and rides and I hope that the info above may help some of you also.

For more info, photos and videos or many of the bike trails in the Chicagoland area, see our popular Bike Trails pages and as I’ve said for so many years, Enjoy the Ride(s).