Blog Assignment 2 - bikely.com

For blog assignment 2, I chose the search section of bikely.com. Bikely.com is a website where cyclists can go and share routes for locations all over the world. When I first used it, I was particularly impressed by the search features and the ease with which it allowed me to find just the kind of cycling route I was looking for in the Bloomington area.

It allows you to narrow your search, first with the city name, the country, and the state. This is all fairly standard in this kind of search feature. The bit that really caught my attention was the "Tagged With" and "But Not With" box. At first glance, I was slightly intimidated by this. I had no idea what kind of "tag terminology" I might need to employ to get me desired results. However, (and this is the clever part) when you click to type in either of the two boxes, a menu of the standard tags appears, allowing you to select your options. This allows you to find a route tailored exactly to your specifications. For instance, I really enjoy cycling, but am not really training for anything at this point. So I normally shoot for a route that is "Scenic, Smooth, Basic-Intermediate, Low-traffic." The ease with which I can find routes has allowed me, a non-native, find some really interesting and rewarding bike routes in the Bloomington area.