Photo by Vaidila Kungys

If you've been following us on twitter, you know that today we're launching Ride the City 2.1.

Check it out: http://www.ridethecity.com

Here's a summary of what's new:
1. We now maintain elevation data for every city and show you how much climbing you'll do on your route. We also take elevation into account when we generate routes. So you get a flatter route option, if there is one.

2. You now have a third option for setting the start/end point. Just right-click anywhere on the map - shebang.

3. You can create a user. This isn't very useful in itself, but it allows us to begin to provide you a new level of customization, including the next two features:

4. If you're logged in as a user, you can name and save your favorite routes. Then, whenever you like you can select the saved routes from your account page to re-create them again.

5. If you're logged in, you can right-click ANY street segment anywhere in the city, including along a route to rate it. Why would you want to rate street segments? Because once you do, Ride the City will generate all your future routes with your preferences/ratings, overriding Ride the City's built-in preferences. For example, if you find that Ride the City takes you over some bridge too often, assign it a low rating and the next time it won't put you over that bridge.

Your ratings will also be averaged together with other users' ratings to create a Ride the City community rating, which you can view. (We'll use these to refine the master ratings.)

As you'll see, we are displaying bicycle-oriented ads on the bottom of the routing screens and the side of the blog, along with links to bicycle advocacy groups and agencies, that we provide at no charge. Support Ride the City and shop with us.

To learn more, view the handy FAQs. They're full of step-by-step instructions and screenshots: http://www.ridethecity.com/faq