image from Average Joe Cyclist

Today we're happy to announce that Ottawa is receiving one more tool to help make bicycling a bit easier in Canada's fourth largest city. Please welcome Ride the City - Ottawa (available in English and French). Ride the City is a bicycle routing web and mobile service (iPhone & Android) that helps bicyclists to navigate city streets; it's based on Open Street Map, the volunteer effort to map the world so anyone can contribute to Open Street Map to make it better for all bicyclists.

Here's a short video to walk you through the basics of Ride the City and how to edit Open Street Map: youtube video. You can do a lot to improve the map such as correct the name of a street, add a new bridge or missing multi-use path, or add a tag to show that a street has a bike lane on it.

For those new to Ride the City, here are a few key features:

1. Find any bike shop by clicking on the bike shop icons that include (where available) address, phone, hours of operation, and, website.
2. Choose your route by selecting the level of safety: safer, safe, or direct. These options allow you to choose the route with the most bike paths/bike lanes versus the most direct route, but we try to keep you off dangerous, busy streets or highways.
3. Add you own points of interest (right click the map wherever you want to add one).
4. Update bike shop info to add or revise a bike shop (see the 'Tools' drop down menu).
5. We take your input seriously. If you find an error or want to show a bike route, feel free to let us know. Send us note at info (at) ridethecity.com.

We'd like to thank Natalie for her research support and to all those who gave early feedback and comments to make Ride the City - Ottawa happen. Thank you.

Enjoy your summer & ride safely.