posted November 28, 2007 by trek7k

I noticed an interesting new map view on Google Maps when searching for directions the other day: Terrain. Up until now Google Maps has been a pretty bad choice for mapping mountain bike trails since the maps are built around roads and driving. With this new data layer mountain bikers have a much better choice for viewing terrain and getting a feel for the lay of the land. In terrain view roads are subtle as well, allowing you to focus on stuff like topography and park boundaries.

Of course Google Maps has offered satellite views from the beginning but those images are flat and reveal nothing about elevation. I haven’t been able to use the terrain function on all my maps though, perhaps some areas don’t have coverage yet? I’ve also yet to see terrain available on sites using the Google API (including our own GPS Trail Data Manager). Terrain view is definitely a welcome addition for outdoor enthusiasts, especially to those of us who avoid the pavement!

Related posts:

1. Topo maps in Google Earth: Map your bike trails
2. Google Maps: Bike Directions and Singletrack?
3. Google Adding “Trail Views” to Maps
4. 500 Mountain bike trail maps (and counting!)
5. New trail maps

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 28th, 2007 at 9:27 am and is filed under GPS for MTB, Hors Categorie. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response by logging in and using the form at the bottom of this post, or trackback from your own site.