Google Maps Brings Biking Directions to Mobile Phones

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Some people like biking that much that Google has decided to answer all their prayers, literally that is, and include navigation support for biking enthusiasts in Google Maps. The Biking Direction feature, unveiled at the National Bike Summit in Washington, DC, will certainly be a very useful tool for those 57 million Americans who ride a bike.

But in order to take advantage of the new Google Maps version with navigation for bikes, they will have to get a smart enough phone to deal with the actual software. Biking Directions is only available to U.S. customers so far so if you’re not living in the USA but love the new feature you’ll either have to move there or wait for Google to discover biking trails in your market too.

So how does this whole biking navigation process work? Well Google will display on its maps bike trails, bike lanes and bike-friendly roads thanks to a new “bicycling” layer. Step-by-step bicycling directions are also available and if you’ve used Google Maps’ navigation feature while driving around in your car you’ll surely adapt fairly easy to the new biking directions layer.

Just like with any other navigation software, you can select your starting point and destination, choose “Bicycling” from the drop down menu and Google Maps will get you a cycling-based route in order for you to get faster to where you’re going. Google Maps will try to avoid hilly terrain whenever that’s possible so in case you’re a courier on a bike the software could help you better plan your daily routes.

All the regular Google Maps features will be available to those of you that will use it for biking directions, including Street View. Google Maps will also get you time estimates based on a complicated algorithm that also takes into account the number of hills you encounter and fatigue over time.

Google Maps with Biking Directions is currently in beta but you can always try it out. And here’s what you need to know about the routes displayed on your cellphone’s screen:

Dark green indicates a dedicated bike-only trail;

Light green indicates a dedicated bike lane along a road;

Dotted green indicates roads without bike lanes but are more appropriate for biking, based on factors such as terrain, traffic, and intersections.

Ready for biking with Google support starting today?