Google celebrates Bike to Work month with new bike layer in Maps Navigation

We are finally getting some beautiful weather here in Washington State and it is Bike to Work month here in Seattle. This makes for perfect time for Google to announce their Google Maps for Android biking directions capability. Google also added the ability to launch navigation from your Home screen, sharing of places with friends, and more.

Biking directions previously launched on the desktop, but is much more useful on Android devices that you can physically mount to your bike. You will now see a bike icon next to the car, bus, and pedestrian in Google Maps Navigation and after tapping the bike icon you will see the bicycling layer appear on the map with dedicated bike-only trails, roads with bike lanes, and roads that are good for biking and lack a dedicated lane.

The Navigation shortcut places the blue icon on one of your Home screens so you do not have to go through various menus to launch Google Maps Navigation. The sharing feature lets you send a search results page to your friends via email, text, Facebook, Twitter, or Google Buzz.