Bicycle Training Mapmyride.com

Whether you’re training for the “Artie” (Now the Best of the Blue Ridge, the Artie Levin Memorial Ride) training for something else or riding for pleasure there is a tool you should know about.

It’s a training mechanism that requires no more energy than I’m expending right now!

Mapmyride.com is a free application that allows you to plot your bike rides.  When you’re done, it not only gives you a map of where you’ve been, but also how many calories you’ve burned, how many feet you’ve climbed and more.

Let’s take a look at a 14 miler that serves as my regular route when I have an hour to ride.

I call it the Wexford loop.  For simplicity’s sake We’ll start and end at Penn Forest Elementary School.  This ride is challenging enough that I can tire myself out pretty well in “only” 14-15 miles.  ( The route is slightly longer if I start at my house) 

First I mapped the route.  I found it much easier once I discovered the tool on the left that allowed me to have the points I was plotting follow a road. 

Here’s what my map told me.
• The route is 13.85 miles
• There are 627 feet of climbing, 607 of descending
• The highest elevation is 1611 feet

With a simple click I could view the route as a street map, then on a topographic map, or a terrain view map that showed me when there was a hill or valley.  Then with the satellite view, I could actually see the school where the ride starts, and all the houses, fields and maybe even the cows that I passed!

There are two places on the route where you must dismount your bike to walk along a short path.  I clicked on the icon for “dirt road” and added these to the map, with simple instructions for the next person.

Speaking of which, did I mention these maps can be private or public?  That means I can share my routes with you, and vice versa.  In fact there is already a database of rides in the region that others have logged.  One of them is the 70 mile version of the Artie ride.

So here’s the deal.  There are a number of courses that are regular routes for my group.  I’ll be happy to share them with you.  When I post an update to my own training schedule, I’ll try to include links to these maps, so you can see how I’m approaching a 100 mile ride – just in case you have similar ambitions.

Please stay in touch and let me know how it’s going.  Don’t forget we would love to have you on our WSLS cycling team.  If you don’t want to ride in the Artie, please make a contribution to help us fight MS.