I think I'm finally getting close to printed maps that I'm satisfied with. Or that I at least don't totally hate. Long ago I started with trying to setup Google Maps to print out the routes, but those were totally unsatisfying. Then, I discovered the OpenStreetMap project and Mapnik, which helped me along the way. Still, those maps were fuzzy when you printed them and not very useful. I've finally gone one step further and created high-resolution maps that should print nicely. I had to put them into PDF files to achieve this, so the print feature is no longer available. Now, you can download the PDF file for a particular ride option and print that out. I'm still not totally satisfied with how readable they are, but I feel like I'm heading in the right direction. The next refinement to the printed maps will be to fiddle with the fonts, colors, line weights, icons, etc... to make them works of art. I'm sure I'll get to this someday.
As a result of removing printing, I had to redo printed driving directions. Now there's a button on the parking page that brings up the standard Google Maps page for directions from your starting point to the ride start. I think this will work nicely.
Other refinements in this release are no more adds on the maps themselves, and radio buttons to choose the ride length. The map adds were just plain annoying and didn't make me enough money to justify their existence. The radio buttons stemmed from a user complaint that it's not obvious that there are different length options for each ride. I hope this helps. Only time will tell.
Up next I have some final refinements to the map page that I want to implement. After that, I have some ideas for a mobile-phone app for the site to help navigate on rides. Keep an eye out for these refinements in the near future.
Enjoy!
Jay Farrimond
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