Forgive me if I'm underwhelmed, as usual, with yet another Google announcement. Somebody has to be since it seems like the whole biking community is falling over themselves with glee. But as I wrote earlier, what else is there to get excited about in the biking community nowadays. Anyway, you can test out the new feature at http://maps.google.com/biking. I tried it out for my daily bike commute, and the route it recommended was predictably out of my way and required I head to either of the two bike lanes on Valencia and Harrison, couple blocks away. Why would I do that? I'd rather ride down a secondary rode, without stop lights, other bikers, and cars so I can avoid the daily commuter time trials going on with people passing back and forth, California stop the stop signs, and avoid tired, cranky drivers to get to work safe, sound, and alive. But that's me. It might be useful for longer trips, but only if you can't find a good book on long distance rides, your local bike shops has no good beta, and nobody online does either. Then I get its utility. For city riding, it seems pointless to use unless you're scared of riding on roads with no bike lanes. Just saying. Anyway, read about how great this thing is on Google's official blog and more in-depth on Google Lat-Long.

UPDATE: When it comes to biking blogs, there is NYC Bike Snob, and then there's the rest of them. Sure he's verbose to the point of somnolence, is obviously in love with his own writing, and somewhere in the scramble to ingratiate himself to the equally navel gazing niche biking community with his never ending prose & photos, forgot the whole point of a blog was brevity. But damn if he doesn't command a room. Plus he got a book deal out of the whole thing so he's obviously smarter than all the bloggers on this site. Especially me. But like I said, as the NYCBS goes, so does the biking world. At least the 1000 guys from Williamsburg that read him missing the whole point. So when he gives Google's new bike route layer a triple MEH, I get to look around the room I command, which strangely reeks of urine, vomit, and cheap beer, and smile. Yes I do. High five!