During the summer we blogged about the nice maps by Cloudmade that make up the background for Ride the City (here's that blog post). Since then, Cloudmade has developed a great new mapping tool to make for easier mapping. It's called Mapzen: a tool by Cloudmade that helps anyone contribute to the free & volunteer effort to map the whole planet, including your street and favorite places. To access Mapzen, you need an Open Street Map user account, then simply log on and edit the map. Here's a screen shot from Hunts Point, Bronx, where I used to work.

Since some of you might not have been riding your bikes over the holidays, you may have missed a new feature that allows you to customize your routes. Now you can rate any street segment along your route so that it incorporates your local knowledge that is sometimes better and than any official map.

Here's how it works. First, log in to Ride the City and generate a route. (If you don't have a user profile yet, just click the register/login button on the top right of the screen and follow the steps.) Next, click on any street segment along the colored route and rate it from 1 (always avoid) to 7 (always very safe). Click save and you're done.

Here are a few reasons you may want to customize streets:

• There's a construction project on a street with a bike lane, and the work's gonna have the street in mess for a long while (Rate it: 2 - Usually avoid)
• You know of a few streets that have precious views and are usually car free, although they don't have bike lanes (Rate it: 6 - Usually very safe)
• You've had wild dogs chase you on a particular street on more than one occasion (Rate it: 1 - Always avoid)
• Your route takes you by your ex-boyfriend's place and you don't want to run into him (Rate it: 1 - Always avoid)

Here's how the steps appear on your screen:

The more streets you rate, the more Ride the City will reflect your own preferences.

To read about other features, check out our FAQs.

In case you've just recently come to our site, we've developed some new features as part this newest version of Ride the City, which we blogged about earlier and launched late last year. Let me tell you about one of the new items that make Ride the City a bit better: Now you can save your routes as favorites. It's easy. Here's how it works.

First you have to sign on as a user; it's simple and free and necessary for you to be able to have access to unique customization of your bike routes. (To create a user, just click the register/login button on the top right of the screen and follow the steps.) Once you've done that, just generate a route and save it. Then, whenever you want to access the same route, go to my account and select my favorite routes: See below:

It's striking how quickly technology has changed and sped up this past 10 years. From blogs and smart phones to Twitter and social networking, the Internet and access to data is making communication easier, faster, and more efficient.

NYC is at the leading edge of this front because it's actively promoting free access to data sharing. In October, the City launched the NYC BigApps Competition specifically for that purpose, to attract useful applications built from data that the City provides for free. In their words:

"The City of New York is improving the way it provides information and transparency to citizens. But delivering great information requires great tools. The NYC BigApps Competition will reward the developers of the most useful, inventive, appealing, effective, and commercially viable applications for delivering information from the City of New York's NYC.gov Data Mine to interested users."

From today through January 7th, you can raise your mice to vote for the applications you like best. There are lots of handy apps, many of which I plan to use on a regular basis, such as NYC Landmarks, for all those times when you see a horrible rehab job and wish you knew if the building were in a historic district, or Hey Walkies, which shows all the dog park locations (each marked with a cute pink paw). Oh, and if you like what we're doing here, you can vote for Ride the City, too. We're grateful to the City for making its LION street centerline files available to the public. Without that, Ride the City likely wouldn't be here.

To participate, simply go to the NYC BigApps website, sign in, and then you're eligible to vote.

Autumn Radle (Oklahoma City, OK)
I was paging through the recent edition of Bicycle Times and came across an ad by the Alliance for Biking and Walking. They're holding a People Powered Movement Photo Contest. The deadline's past, but it's time for the public to rise up to vote for the best pics - online voting is open through December 31st. You can shape the results for who wins the 10-day Tuscan VBT bike tour.

The photos are helping to build the Alliance's photo library, a free resource for members (free membership). Members can submit and download photos. Image categories include Advocates in Action, Biking, Biking and Walking, Complete Streets, Infrastructure, Inspirational (like this one on the left), Walking, and Youth. Nice resource.

Photo by Vaidila Kungys

If you've been following us on twitter, you know that today we're launching Ride the City 2.1.

Check it out: http://www.ridethecity.com

Here's a summary of what's new:
1. We now maintain elevation data for every city and show you how much climbing you'll do on your route. We also take elevation into account when we generate routes. So you get a flatter route option, if there is one.

2. You now have a third option for setting the start/end point. Just right-click anywhere on the map - shebang.

3. You can create a user. This isn't very useful in itself, but it allows us to begin to provide you a new level of customization, including the next two features:

4. If you're logged in as a user, you can name and save your favorite routes. Then, whenever you like you can select the saved routes from your account page to re-create them again.

5. If you're logged in, you can right-click ANY street segment anywhere in the city, including along a route to rate it. Why would you want to rate street segments? Because once you do, Ride the City will generate all your future routes with your preferences/ratings, overriding Ride the City's built-in preferences. For example, if you find that Ride the City takes you over some bridge too often, assign it a low rating and the next time it won't put you over that bridge.

Miguel Luciano, Pimp My Piragua, 2008 Courtesy of the artist

Want a weekend getaway within spitting distance of NYC? Throw your bike on Metro North (yes, lame-o bike permit still necessary) and head up to Branchville and then bike in the last three miles to the Aldrich Museum at 258 Main Street, Ridgefield, CT.

While their current show, Bike Rides, is not as comprehensive as it could be (e.g. Where are Taliah Lempert’s beautiful oil paintings? Her coloring books are in the gift shop.), it's still good fun. The Puerto Rican Schwinn Club bikes finally get the recognition they are due and there are also some great short films on cycling from around the world.

Photo by David W. Dunlap, NYTimes

Getting around by bike in NYC just got safer, especially for those riding in a pedicab. As of 12:01 AM last night (Saturday morning), new regulations went into effect that require all operators of pedicabs to have a registration plate in NYC. According to the New York Times article, Regulated, Inspected and Licensed, by Michael Grynbaum, the latest numbers tally 844 licensed individual pedicabs from 150 different businesses.

The Biking Rules PSA Film Festival on Tuesday night was outrageous fun. The Festival, organized by Transportation Alternatives, premiered submissions from their image and video competitions. There were two categories in which images and videos could compete:
Category 1: The Biking Rules Street Code, including: