Calling all fellow esk8 commuters! I have not been able to find a topic about how you navigate your city on your esk8, so if you esk8 your commute, or if you just take the board out for a spin to the corner store, or if your boards are just a hobby that you joyride on, I want to hear from you!
How do you navigate your city on your esk8? What do you use for directions? I have seen the “Where do you ride” topic, but of the options in your city, what do you prefer, and how do you navigate to your destination? I’ll go first:
My transportation is 95% esk8 and public transportation. My city (Portland, OR) has a fairly robust system of bike lanes/paths, and they are working to make them better. We also have “Neighborhood Greenways” that are residential streets that are marked for shared use, and are great for esk8.
Google Maps biking directions interfaces pretty well with all of those things here, although sometimes it defaults to putting me on a bike lane off a main street when I would rather be in the neighborhood. We also have pretty good public transportation, and google maps also interfaces well with that.
My biggest gripe is that google maps does not have a dedicated mode for “biking to the metro”. When you ask for public transit directions it defaults to assuming that you are walking and gives you directions based on that. I usually end up using bike directions to the metro stop, and metro directions from there. It’s frustrating that google cant do a better job of optimizing my route, for example if it knew that I can go 20mph, but only where bikes go.
the nature of where i live there are not too many different ways to get somewhere, so its mostly by memory or eyes . last weekend was supporting my wife on her marathon i used google maps with pre-defined check points to navigate. had the turn by turn in my headset which helped when paths were unexpectedly closed.
. last weekend was supporting my wife on her marathon i used google maps with pre-defined check points to navigate. had the turn by turn in my headset which helped when paths were unexpectedly closed.