Wilsons Sandbox

Hi all, I'm normally in lurk mode but will pop up my head on Vendor Friday this once to let people know about my app. Greatest Road for iPhone is like a restaurant review app, but for sweet motorcycle roads. It helps motorcyclists find great places to ride based on recommendations, ratings and comments from other bikers. The app makes it easy for you to add new stretches so you can share riding directions with your buddies. For about the price of a couple of maps you get immediate, constantly updated access to all of the roads and rider comments across the US, Canada and 35+ other countries. All rides are entered and commented on by other bikers. Any ride can be emailed to yourself or others for use on the receiver's iPhone or on a PC/Mac as a gpx file. I find this is really handy for loading on my dedicated bike GPS, since I don't attach my iPhone to the KLR's dashboard. It's also better for sharing directions with buddies than "yeah, you go past that orchard, turn right where the store used to be and go for a few miles until you see the gate...". The app will work for dirt and paved roads, as long as you can see them in Google Maps. The app is meant to be used to find, plan and share rides. We hand off to Google Maps for use while you're navigating the ride. We expect to be able to hand off to Navigon, TomTom, MotionX and others eventually. One of the big reasons I built the app was this - Tom, one of my riding friends, and I have known each other for 10 years. Last summer he mentioned this semi-local road (Mines Road and Mt. Hamilton) in passing. I'd never heard of it, but it's a great place to get to and ride. It bugged me that he'd had this locked in his head, not holding it back maliciously, just never bothering to tell me about it either. This app should help me to share the roads I know about and to find out about other good ones that my friends know about. I've been working on the app for a few months, and it's now available from the iTunes app store. Full details are at http://greatestroad.com/ , or you can go right to the App Store page via http://greatestroad.com/GetApp . If you have any questions you can get in touch on this list (I'm dpifko) or on our discussion forum at http://greatestroad.com/forums/ . Good riding, Daniel Daniel Pifko Founder Greatest Road Software http://greatestroad.com/

Dear Daniel, Thanks for posting this. The more I think about it, the more your app seems a stroke of genius. At first I thought that anyone using it would need to have an iPhone -- a concept that could trigger bar brawls. But from what you are saying, and what your site says, my understanding is that once a ride is entered by someone with the iPhone, the ride can be distributed to anyone who can make use of a gpx file. Am I getting that right? In other words, one person with an iPhone maps a ride, and anyone with a GPS that can accept a gpx file can display the ride using google maps? I guess the real value of the app itself is that iPhone users can comment on given rides (the same way yelp users can debate a given restaurant), which essentially uses "crowdsourcing" to keep information accurate and up to date.  Okay, I live in China, a land of many great rural roads -- very few of which have been mapped for motorcycling. So, is China among those 35+ countries where Greatest Road users are happily mapping great rides? Or will I be the first?? cool app. best thanks,Jeff  

On Feb 12, 2010, at 10:10 AM, Daniel wrote:   Hi all, I'm normally in lurk mode but will pop up my head on Vendor Friday this once to let people know about my app. Greatest Road for iPhone is like a restaurant review app, but for sweet motorcycle roads. It helps motorcyclists find great places to ride based on recommendations, ratings and comments from other bikers. The app makes it easy for you to add new stretches so you can share riding directions with your buddies. For about the price of a couple of maps you get immediate, constantly updated access to all of the roads and rider comments across the US, Canada and 35+ other countries. All rides are entered and commented on by other bikers. Any ride can be emailed to yourself or others for use on the receiver's iPhone or on a PC/Mac as a gpx file. I find this is really handy for loading on my dedicated bike GPS, since I don't attach my iPhone to the KLR's dashboard. It's also better for sharing directions with buddies than "yeah, you go past that orchard, turn right where the store used to be and go for a few miles until you see the gate...". The app will work for dirt and paved roads, as long as you can see them in Google Maps. The app is meant to be used to find, plan and share rides. We hand off to Google Maps for use while you're navigating the ride. We expect to be able to hand off to Navigon, TomTom, MotionX and others eventually. One of the big reasons I built the app was this - Tom, one of my riding friends, and I have known each other for 10 years. Last summer he mentioned this semi-local road (Mines Road and Mt. Hamilton) in passing. I'd never heard of it, but it's a great place to get to and ride. It bugged me that he'd had this locked in his head, not holding it back maliciously, just never bothering to tell me about it either. This app should help me to share the roads I know about and to find out about other good ones that my friends know about. I've been working on the app for a few months, and it's now available from the iTunes app store. Full details are at http://greatestroad .com/ , or you can go right to the App Store page via http://greatestroad .com/GetApp . If you have any questions you can get in touch on this list (I'm dpifko) or on our discussion forum at http://greatestroad .com/forums/ . Good riding, Daniel Daniel Pifko Founder Greatest Road Software http://greatestroad .com/