GPS Bicycle Navigation with free Software

More than I year ago I’ve started to cycle for the first time after a very long period of time (decades 😉 ). Those days I didn’t know my surrounding area very well, because I was pretty new to it. But I had a Pocket PC, an XDA mini and I had already a GPS Bluetooth mouse. The XDA mini is a Windows Mobile 2003SE device, and there are already many open source, or just free to use tools out there. I’ve started to look for GPS navigation software, but didn’t find anything free, that had movable maps, or it was free but the maps weren’t included. A movable map is scrolling accordingly, while you are moving. Almost all car navigation systems like TomTom or Navigon aren’t using movable maps, the maps they are using for sure moves, but they are vector maps, not bitmaps. Continue reading “GPS Bicycle Navigation with free Software”

Stuttgart by Bicycle

Navigating with GPS and a bike in the Stuttgart area? No problem anymore: VVS Fahrradroutenplaner
I’m just impressed! I’ve been using this many times now. And in combination with Google Earth, it’s perfect tool to get everywhere in my area.
Just a little tip: In Google Earth you can let mountain look 3 times higher, than they really are. That way it’s much clearer to see, if one track is easy, normal, difficult, or almost impossible to do by bike.
You can set it up under: Continue reading “Stuttgart by Bicycle”

Open Street Map for Cyclers

I’m looking periodically into this site: OpenCycleMap . I’m just interested, whether there’s a new GPS-track I can use for a trip. I’m also playing with the thought to cache some data to and provide it, too.
The map shows Great Britain, because the project stated there. The Netherlands offers also a lot of tracks already. Germany, Swiss, Sweden, Poland and a few other countries have also a few tracks to offer.
Also the east cost of the United States has a few tracks. And it’s getting more every single day.