Finding new bike rides and routes in your local area can be intimidating for beginner road cyclists. Lucky for modern road cyclists, gone are the days of pre-driving an unkown route to get a feel for the mileage, elevation or conditions; gone are the days of stalking other local riders to learn new climbs, shortcuts or scenic routes.
With today’s satellite imagery, mapping technology and gps devices, cyclists can plan routes down to the 1/10 of a mile and exact elevation profile before ever clicking into their pedals. Further, today’s cycling websites have brought a social aspect to the somewhat soloist sport that allows riders to see where, what and how others are riding. So what are you waiting for? Crank up that modem, dial-in to AOL and jump on the world wide web!
Here are our top websites for gathering ride intel. These sites go beyond just mapping rides and begin to help cyclists understand their performance, and others’ performance and facilitate the exchange of data, information and socialization the likes of which road cycling has never seen.
Strava

Garmin Connect
http://connect.garmin.com
http://www.mapmyride.com/ - Map my ride allows you to not only log your gpx. and .tcx files/rides but also allows users to “draw” or “map” rides on streets and paths. Further, the “search” feature allows you to search by geography, keyword, distance, etc and find other community members’ ride files and mapped rides.