Bike Hugger 

We’ll have these Official Mobile Social Party Hats for the ride attendees @sxsw and in Seattle during the Bike Expo.

Note: limited edition and quantities.

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Google built their new Bike Maps right here in Seattle and Product Manager Shannon Guymon posted on the Official Google Blog this morning with instructions:

Let’s say you want to bike to work, or maybe you want to drive less and spend more time outdoors. Biking directions can help you find a convenient and efficient route that makes use of dedicated bike trails or lanes and avoids hills whenever possible. To find biking directions, select “Bicycling” from the drop-down menu when you do a directions search:

I’m riding over to the Bike Expo this weekend and tried a route …

Before heading to Florida on a work trip several years ago I lay sprawled across my den with a giant road map of the area, a set of highlighters, a guide book and my laptop. A frequent traveler, I like to bring my folding bike with me, and I like to head out on bike rides between meetings or trade show stops.

As I looked up cycling routes in my guide book I’d compare them to a Google Map search of the area and then stencil in the most suitable rides with my various highlighters. Guidebook, Google, map, guidebook, Google map. It took me about two hours to sketch out the various trips from my hotel room to the surrounding environs, none of which would be necessary if Google Maps included the feature the company is rolling out today, a new bike layer with directions in major metropolitan areas.

Google, who is joining Bike Hugger at the Mobile Social in Austin at SXSW to talk about this exciting new feature (more on that in other posts) has taken a lot of time to develop the much-requested cycling layer for their popular Google Maps tool. No mere add-on, the new functionality provides cyclists with some impressive features thanks to an overhaul in how Google Maps works.

In many ways, Google’s technology will be more accurate and more detailed than anything that regional planning groups or municipal governments tend to provide as it will indicate not only state-designated or city-designated bike lanes and routes, but trails and other bike paths as well.

Google is joining the Mobile Social SXSW for the ride and party at Mellow Johnnys. Meet the developers who built the new bicycling layer for Google Maps.

Meet the Bike Map Makers

Google’s Bike Maps were built right here in Seattle by cyclists like us and for those of you in Austin for SXSW, you can ride with and meet the developers. Look for these shirts on the ride

and for Google at Mellow Johnnys.

More on Google Bike Maps:

• NY Times article with a quote from me
• Techflash article with another quote.

Howdy, from Austin, TX! I’m Jonathan Carroll, Community Manager, Biz Dev guy and all-around Killer Robot at Gowalla. I have the pleasure of guest-blogging today.

Gowalla is a location-based social service, and we think it’s the easiest way to share places you go with friends. It uses the GPS and location services on your mobile device to help you discover new places and events in your area, and is integrated with social platforms like Facebook and Twitter to make it easy to share with your friends. We’re partnering with Bike Hugger for the Mobile Social SXSW in Austin this year to create a sponsored trip using our service. A ‘trip’ on Gowalla is just a collection of spots you can visit that are all linked together and which, if all visited, reward the user with a special achievement pin. The trip we’ve implemented for the Mobile Social SXSW features just 3 spots, all of which will be easy to obtain on the group ride:

... Read more »

Back from the Twitter Conference and next up it’s SXSW, Bike Expo, and then onto Mix 10 in Vegas. We ride wherever we go and you’re welcome to join us.

Austin

Our ride in Austin is part of the Mobile Social and we’re expecting 500+ cyclists. Look for this badge that identifies the Social Cycling ATX ride leaders, all 50 of them, and they’ll take you around Austin arriving at Mellow Johnnys for a party.

I arrive on Monday to speak Tuesday with @livestrongceo. We’re riding Tuesday morning. Not 500 of us, just a few and will announce more on Twitter.

In Japan, they’ve got the Skycycle and in Rotorua New Zealand, the Schweeb — that’s a ‘bent monorail.

That rollercoaster looks scary and this monorail looks fun!

A moment to mention our partners with thanks for bringing the Mobile Social to SXSW in 2010.

Mobile Social SXSW Partners	2010

We’ve been posting on this SRAMANO drivetrain on Flickr and Twitter and time to bubble it up here. That’s the best of both, according to the owner, and it’s Di2 pared with SRAM Red/Rival.

Details:

• Di2 shifters, derailers
• Rival brakes
• SRAM chainring, chain, cranks, cassette

I suggested he add a Campy something on it somewhere. Would like to see how our friends at Mavic would react to a request for Technical support on this bike.

Uploaded by Hugger Industries | more from the Bike Hugger Photostream.

No indication other than “looks like spycraft” in this photo, but do think spies could move through a city plying their trade all stealthy like on bikes.

Update

The Associated Press reported over the weekend on MI5 papers that show Britain feared Nazi spyclists.

Newly declassified British intelligence files reveal the ripples of alarm that spread through the country as Hitler Youth cyclists toured Britain in 1937. Reports of sightings poured in from local police amid fears the teenagers might be two-wheeled “spyclists” scouting the country for a future invasion.

That reads like a movie script.

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