Shaun McDonald's Blog

Google Maps now has a great route planning feature called “avoid highways”. This produces routes that don’t go on to motorways and some trunk routes, such as the Edinburgh City Bypass, where cyclists are not allowed.

It still isn’t perfect for cyclists as it doesn’t allow for some
roads that cyclists are not allowed on. However it is a step in the right direction for route planning for more experienced cyclists who are happy to cycle on main roads rather than the quieter National Cycle Routes.

It also still routes cyclists on some roads that cyclists are banned from using, such as the West Approach Road in Edinburgh.
See example map that shows this problem.

Another problem is where the route planner takes you a much longer way than you would expect. For example Edinburgh to Dundee avoiding highways takes you via the Kincardine Bridge, this is fine if there is high winds and the Forth Road Bridge is closed to high sided vehicles and pedestrians/cyclists. However that is significantly longer than going via the Forth Road Bridge.

Yesterday I cycled in the Edinburgh Critical Mass.

The idea about Critical Mass is to raise awareness of cycling. A large group of cyclists just get together and cycle around a city as a group. It is completely unorganised except the starting location and time. No route is planned in advance. Anyone in the group can decide to take the lead and the route is chosen on the fly by consensus.
In Edinburgh, on the last Friday of every month at 17:30 for 18:00 set off, a bunch of cyclists get together at the the foot of the mound beside the National Galleries of Scotland. The cycle takes around an hour or two.

From 20070525Criti…

From 20070525Criti…

Some photos that I took on Flickr
Same photos on Picasa Web Albums
The route
GPX Trace

On Wednesday I cycled about 36 miles from Edinburgh to Dunbar in just over 2 hours. The tail wind and my significant amount of recent cycling helped with the short duration. I lazily took the train back.

From 20070523Edinb…

From 20070523Edinb…

Map of ride (no track points between Dunbar station and Edinburgh Waverley station).