Every year, I look forward to getting my hands on the New York City Bike Map -- that glorious compendium of safe citywide cycling. You drop it in your handlebar bag before a ride, check it when you need it, and then crumple it into your back pocket when you don't.

One drawback to the paper map when you're lucky enough to have a Transportation Department as active as ours? After 12 months, the printed map can get somewhat out of date.

Ride the City has the solution to the outdated bicycle map problem: an integrated feedback system.

Here's how it works: After Ride the City generates a route, click on rate the route. In the window that pops up, rate the generated route and let us know why it deserves your rating. Please be as specific as possible. "This route sux" doesn't help much; "I would suggest 34th Ave rather than Northern Blvd" helps a lot.

Wow, we were excited to launch Ride the City this weekend. Now that we've started receiving feedback, we're ecstatic.

Thanks for all of the positive comments. We're also pleased with your critiques, suggestions, and corrections. Read on for a few things we've heard that you're going to see changing:

Printing
This is probably the most critical item and one we've been working on for a while. Expect a nice, readable set of printed directions in the next week or so. Printing a handsome map may take a bit longer.

Traffic directionality
You may have noticed that Ride the City doesn't send you the wrong way on a one-way street. (If it does please let us know.)