So maybe you just bought a new electric bike and now you are looking for fun places to ride.
Or maybe you are an experienced eBiker with many ride routes but are always looking for more fun places to ride.
The good news is that there are a bunch of places to ride with more tools than ever to find them.
These fun routes might be in your town/city or maybe these new routes are in an area that you will be visiting. eBiking is a great way to get out and enjoy where you live or where you are visiting.
Here are some ideas on the many ride route tools that are available for you.
Google Maps
This is probably one of the most obvious choices in today’s highly connected world. But did you know that Google Maps has suggested bike routes that take into consideration providing an easy, mellow route, safety, and avoiding challenging terrain like tunnels, stairs, and poor road conditions?
The system suggests routes that have minimal climbing for a mellow ride on a conventional bike, but that isn’t too much of a concern when you have electric assist!
One of the newer features of Google Maps is the ability to see how much climbing and descending will be along the route.
Google Maps creates the bike routes using “a combination of machine learning, complex algorithms and our understanding of real-world conditions based on imagery and data from government authorities and community contributions.”
The biking directions are much like the driving directions except you select bike instead of car and the route is much more bike friendly.
If you are looking for new places to ride you can visit Google Maps and select the biking layer and see all the options that include trails, dedicated bike lanes, bicycle friendly routes, and dirt/unpaved trails.
This is a good way to see route options to explore new areas of your town/city. You can get creative and map out a multi-point ride.
Maybe there is a museum to checkout and a new restaurant to enjoy afterwards while riding through a historic neighborhood along the way.
People for Bikes
People for Bikes has a few ride route exploration options available.
First up is their Ride Spot App for your smartphone that has a variety of ride routes for exploring your town/city and ideas on fun rides for places you may visit.
There are rides around town, road rides in the country, gravel rides, mountain bike rides, and more. Some of the town rides include tours of murals, restaurants, breweries, and more. The app also features ride challenges that include ride more for Earth Day, ride to carbon neutral, etc.
You can save ride routes that you want to do in the app and track your ride stats as well. There is also a social media section where you can follow others and be followed, plus a social feed with ideas from others on new rides to checkout.
Also, checkout other ride routes from People for Bikes here.
Next up is the People for Bikes eMTB Map that provides ride routes that are open to electric mountain bikes. Not all traditional mountain bike trails are open to eMTBs, so this map helps to clarify where an eMTB can be ridden.
If you have a ride route to add to the map you can do that as well to grow the ride options available.
Bikemap
Bikemap has route options for towns/cities all over the world. There is good info on the distance and elevation profile for each route along with rider ratings of the route.
Bikemap is available on the desktop browser as well as smartphone app. It looks like a good way to plan rides for your next vacation.
TrailLink
This is a route finding system from the Rails to Trails Conservancy and they offer routes for biking, hiking, skiing, horseback riding, and more.
TrailLink has good descriptions and reviews of the routes. There is the desktop browser and smartphone app as well.
OpenStreetMap
OpenStreetMap is a crowdsourced map system that has a Cycle Map layer for seeing the good bike routes in a town/city, similar to the Google Maps biking layer functionality.
There are many website and smartphone apps that use OpenStreetMap as a base for their mapping needs so you may see it in an app that you use.
Trailforks
For eMTB ride options, Trailforks has an eBike filter (under activity type) on their mountain bike trail map for the desktop as well as the smartphone app.
Trailforks is one of the most comprehensive mountain bike trail maps available. They do charge a fee for unlimited use of their smartphone app. You can select an area on the map to still use for free on the smartphone app. The desktop browser is still free.
MTB Project
MTB Project is very similar to Trailforks and they also have an eBike filter (under the "More" filters) that will provide you with eMTB ride routes.
MTB Project is still free for both the desktop and smartphone app.
Strava
Strava is an app that tracks rides and statistics and has a social media component for following others and for being followed. They do have an eBike setting for tracking your rides as an eBiker in the app as well.
You can get ideas for rides in the app and they also have a heatmap that shows the popular places that others are riding.
In addition there is a list of bike clubs in the app that can help with determining which club may be good to join for more ride ideas.
Maps & Atlases
Back in the day there were these paper maps and atlases that people used in order to chart a route across the open seas to find biking adventures…..kidding, kidding!
But seriously there are some great maps for bike routes in many areas and they can be found with a Google Search or a visit to the local tourism office in the area where you want to ride.
An atlas is another great resource for detailed routes on roads, dirt roads, and trails in a state. They usually have good details on the topography, land types, campgrounds, and more.
An atlas is a great way to zoom in on certain areas around a state to plan out a good ride route.
Local eBike Groups
eBiking groups are forming in many parts of the world and joining one is a great way to check out new ride routes and meet new people.
Check with your local eBike/bike shop for eBike group options in your area.
Facebook Groups
Also, there are a lot of Facebook Groups that may have some group rides or ideas on ride routes for eBiking in the area.
A search for your city with the keywords "your city electric bike" or "your city eBike" in Facebook Groups should come up with some options for you.
Google Search
A Google search might be fairly obvious but you might be surprised at what you find for ride ideas in the area where you want to explore.
It’s a good way to get specific for the type of riding you are interested in. For instance, let’s say you are interested in gravel bike rides in the Los Angeles area.
The 1st result in Google came up with this site that has a lot of good detail including some videos so you know what you can expect to see on the rides.
Chamber of Commerce & Tourism Offices
These can be a great resource for local bike maps and it can be a great way to learn about new routes in your town/city from a local tourism office.
Stay Tuned
There has been more interest and investment in bike infrastructure from cities and towns with more people riding these days. Keep an eye on the city planning department news, local news, and bike groups for more bike routes being built.
Also there are more ride route resources out there, this was just a basic list to help kick off your route search.
Enjoy your rides!
-Pete
