Routes

Harley Davidson Ride Planner

Harley Davidson recently launched a new ride planning website. The idea is that you can input locations and waypoints and it will chart a course for you. There are also extended features that allow you to find good roads, Harley dealerships, hotels, events, and fuel stops. There even 105th anniversary routes preset for out of town’rs headed to the big show.

Check it out at: http://www.harley-davidson.com/rideplanner

The concept is just what I’ve been looking for – but upon review I’ve discovered that there are a few pieces of the puzzle that are still missing.

The core component of the site works alot like Google maps. It’s easy to pan around the world and look for roads – both user generated and Harley approved “Great Roads”. You can input address data or right click on the map to create way points that join together to plan a personalized “My Ride”.

One of the best features that I found was it has the ability to join roads to “My Ride”… so for example you can simply plan a route from one city to another and then view the nearby “great roads” and if it looks like this road is worth a detour, you can add it to “My Ride”. The site will recalculate all the associated information.

Sharing your saved rides or routes is possible via the website by using an email input form. Unfortunately I didn’t see any ability to link directly to a route or embed your saved maps into a webpage or blog.

The biggest disappointment is the events functionality. I was hoping for a map that displayed events and rallies by location and date, but the events listed are limited to Dealer events, Harley-Davidson Motor Co. events, and H.O.G. events. So don’t expect to find the defrost yer nutz run or the dam saloon bikini contest listed on this site.

The hotel listings show only Best Westerns. Fine for some. Not acceptable for those of us who seek out the classic small town motels.

I didn’t see any indication that the website is available on mobile devices, which is key for us riders, but it does have import and export functionality for GPS systems in a .gpx format. (Haven’t tested that yet)

Summary:
The Harley Davidson Ride Planner could be used a good resource if you’re route takes you into unchartered territories and you want to rely on route suggestions from those who have gone before you. I like that this website has the potential to harness user input and opinions, but unfortunately its not the end all solution for rider information. Perhaps it will evolve to meet my expectations.

Side note:
In the future I expect some type of low jack system installed on all Harleys allowing the brethren to see, in real-time, a map of where everyone’s riding. Without crossing the “invasion of privacy” boundaries I’d like to be able to see where my friends are at, catch up with a rally that I don’t have a map to, or just watch the convergence on Sturgis. Who’s with me?

© 2008 Driftless Riders of Minnesota and Wisconsin.