The Blasphemous Bicycler

The Atlanta Citywide Mapathon made the news! Openstreetmap is now one step closer to world domination.

I was driving around Lemoyne the other day, and I noticed that PennDot has put up signs for a new BikePA bicycling route.

So, I turned on the GPS and followed the signs to see where they went. The route goes almost the whole way to Gettysburg, connecting Route J with Route S.

PennDot hasn’t updated their maps in ages, but OpenCycleMap always delivers the goods.

Once you get out of Mechanicsburg, it’s a very scenic ride. It runs for about 30 miles through farms and apple orchards. There are a couple of enormous hills, so be sure to wear comfy shoes for pushing your bike uphill.

Here’s a GPX file of the route, in case you’d like to put it in your GPS or mapping software.

The other day, I saw on Doc’s blog that the LVRT finally got completed to Lebanon.

So yesterday, I went out to scope the new trail. I parked at the trailhead in Cornwall and rode to the point where the trail used to end, but it didn’t end. It went over the fancy new bridge, and it’s paved(!!!) all the way to 8th st.

Just before the bridge, there’s a new spur trail (also paved) that takes you to South Hills Park.

On the way back, I rode out to the park. It’s a nice park. I found a lovely bench in the shade and sat down to space out and relax for a while.

The trail is eventually going to go to the High School / Middle School, but you can pretty much ride there through the park now.

I gps logged the new parts of the trail, and you can now see the new hotness on OpenStreetMap.

View Larger Map

In other news, the new Rail Trail in Lewisburg is coming along nicely, despite grumblings from local yahoos.

I took the bike out for a spin around town yesterday. I wanted to try out the “photo mapping” technique. It works quite well.

After reading Walden the other day, it occurred to me that Walden Pond might not be in OpenStreetMap.

I found it in the Yahoo! aerial imagery and traced it in.

See for yourself.