If you're a regular user of Ride the City, you've probably already noticed the recent changes that we've rolled out on the map. Ride the City looks different and has some new features. There's been a lot going on so let's boil things down a bit...

New Icons: First off, we're really happy to have new icons! We were lucky to find Kelly Shea and James Spahr, avid bicyclists and graphic designers, to help us design icons that are sharp, colorful, and easier to grasp quickly. We began brainstorming in the springtime and came up with lots of great ideas; Kelly and James were very creative, professional, generous, and fun to work with. (We certainly recommend them if you need any design 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:

Even if you haven't been there, you might have heard that Austin is great for bicycling. According to the bike gurus, the League of American Bicyclists, Austin is the only city in the whole state of Texas worthy enough to receive a ranking in their Bicycle Friendly Community program. (The City comes in as the 15th best U.S. city for bicycling, and for that it gets a silver badge.)

Well, we're hopeful that bike riding in the Lone Star state is going to get even better today as we launch Ride the City – Austin: www.ridethecity.com/austin. Put your hands together!

We'd like to thank all those who helped during the tweaking and clean up of the data to improve the routes. We especially thank Nathan Wilkes and Jason Fialkoff, both of Austin's Bicycle Program, and bike advocate Tom Wald. These guys gave excellent feedback and helped to comb through the routes to make sure the most common local routes are accurate. Thanks guys. (Some day we'll show you one of Nate's hand-drawn maps, really cool.)

If you've been using Ride the City for a while, you probably noticed that we changed our base map a couple of weeks ago.

When we developed the second generation of Ride the City we decided to take a chance on using map data and technology from OpenStreetMap (OSM) and CloudMade.

OpenStreetMap is (in their own words) a "free editable map of the whole world." It gives us (and you) the ability to add points of interest, fix street lines, add the location of bike lanes and other bicycle infrastructure and generally improve the maps for everybody who uses OSM – not just users of Ride the City.

Ride the City – Chicago is live! Go to www.ridethecity.com/chicago.

We’ve been working on this for several months and are really happy to have it formally launched. Spread the word to your Chicago peeps. Let us know if we’re missing any bike shops and, please, if a route has problems, provide feedback by clicking the feedback link. For all those who helped and provided comments, thanks a ton!

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.

When you're out on a bike ride and cruising through new territory, carrying a map is probably a good idea. Then again, it can also be a drag to take it out, unfold it, drip sweat all over it and crunch it back into your bag.

Well, now you have one more option to deal with less paper maps: bike routes sent directly to your cell phone as a text message.

This is how it works. Once RTC gives you a route, use the share drop down to choose Send SMS. In the pop up, enter your cell phone number, carrier, and click send. A summarized version of the directions should arrive in no time.

Please let us know how this works by providing feedback so we can improve the glitches.

This weekend is not only Memorial Day Weekend, it marks the beginning of Ride the City's new version 2.0. On Saturday, May 23rd at 2pm we're having a party at Radegast to hang out with y'all, get your input, and give away prizes and gifts. Btw, it's worth it if only for good food & drink.

To highlight one new feature, see the picture above. The new version distinguishes which bike shops have rentals (R within the gear) from which businesses have no rentals (gear without an R). Also (but not in this image) are the businesses that have no bike repair, only bike rentals (R without a gear).

We hope this feature will allow you to find the business you need, without having to do your own sweaty research.

There are other updates, too. We'll go over them this weekend but if you can't make it, don't worry, we'll also walk through these in future posts.

We hope to see you at Radegast.

How long does it take you to ride to your destination? If you use Ride the City, you'll notice that along with "total distance" it provides you with an estimated time.

How is "estimated time" determined? First, Ride the City calculates the total distance. Then it assumes a slow (10mph) and faster (15mph) speed to figure out the low/high estimated riding time. Aside from a slight variation for greenway miles, that's it.

How accurate does the estimated time play out for you?