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The fragmented landscape

Why the Commons exists: today a cyclist's knowledge is scattered across dozens of separate, mostly closed apps — "a different app for everything." This page lists the real providers in each area, as a reference behind that claim. It is a snapshot (June 2026, spot-checked August 2026); names, licences and figures shift, so treat any single entry as a starting point rather than a current fact. A name with a line through it has shut down.

Legend: open = open data / open source · closed = proprietary silo · mixed = open base, closed layer. And what a rider pays: free · freemium (a free tier, the useful part more or less behind a subscription) · paid.

And the question this page tries to answer for each one, because it is the only one a shared dataset cares about: can a fact leave it? open licence = the data itself is openly licensed · edits go upstream = what you add lands in OpenStreetMap · API, restricted = there is a documented interface, and its terms forbid passing the data on · no export documented = the site publishes no API, no download and no data licence. Every verdict links its evidence where a document exists to link; "no export documented" is a statement about what the site publishes, not a claim about what the app can do. Checked 9 September 2026.

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Every service on this page as one dot, placed by licence stance and by price A grid three boxes wide and three boxes tall. Across the bottom the licence stance runs open, mixed, closed. Down the left the price runs free, freemium, paid. Each of the 77 services named on this page is one dot in the box for its pair, and the dots are shaded by the same stance, palest for open and deepest for closed. The closed and free box is by far the fullest with 33 dots, more than the open and mixed columns hold together. The closed and freemium box holds 14. The whole open column holds 14 and the whole mixed column 10. The paid row is empty except under closed, which holds 6. One dot, in the closed and free box, is drawn as a broken ring instead of a filled circle: that service has shut down. free 13 OpenStreetMap Wikipedia Wikimedia Commons CycleStreets BRouter CyclOSM OpenCycleMap EuroVelo Organic Maps Trustroots Couchers.org BikeMaps.org city open-data fountain datasets 6 cycle.travel izi.TRAVEL Mapillary Gravelmap TrailTap WeTap 33 CyclingCols myCols salite.ch cols-cyclisme.com quaeldich.de climbbybike.com CyclingUp Climb Index Europe cycloclimbing Atlas Obscura Google Maps Spotted by Locals Waze One.Network roadworks.org Booking.com Airbnb HostelWorld Bett+Bike Accueil Velo Albergabici Fietsers Welkom! Cyclists Welcome EuroVelo national labels biroto cyclefriendlyhotels beds4cyclists Refill Bosch eBike Flow BikeEnergy CoffeeStop CakeRider Cafe Network freemium 1 OsmAnd 4 Outdooractive iOverlander Park4Night Bike Citizens 14 Strava climbfinder PJAMM Cycling Komoot RideWithGPS Bikemap kurviger Relive Cyql AllTrails Wikiloc Trailforks Polarsteps Warmshowers paid none none 6 VeloViewer 100 Greatest Cycling Climbs Garmin Connect Wahoo Hammerhead Couchsurfing open mixed closed licence stance what a rider pays a broken ring is a service that has shut down
One dot per service, shaded by the same stance the column already names, so the weight of the page shows as a shape. The heavy corner is closed and free: 33 of the 77 sit there, more than the open and mixed columns hold together (24). Free is not the same as open. It usually means somebody else owns the facts and lets you look at them. Point at a dot to read its name, or switch to Table for the same counts written out. FATMAP is not plotted, it has no price left to place it by.
The same 77 services, counted and named.
openmixedclosed
free13OpenStreetMap, Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons, CycleStreets, BRouter, CyclOSM, OpenCycleMap, EuroVelo, Organic Maps, Trustroots, Couchers.org, BikeMaps.org, city open-data fountain datasets6cycle.travel, izi.TRAVEL, Mapillary, Gravelmap, TrailTap, WeTap33CyclingCols, myCols, salite.ch, cols-cyclisme.com, quaeldich.de, climbbybike.com, CyclingUp, Climb Index Europe, cycloclimbing, Atlas Obscura, Google Maps, Spotted by Locals, Waze, One.Network, roadworks.org, Booking.com, Airbnb, HostelWorld, Bett+Bike, Accueil Vélo, Albergabici, Fietsers Welkom!, Cyclists Welcome, EuroVelo national labels, biroto, cyclefriendlyhotels, beds4cyclists, Refill, Bosch eBike Flow, BikeEnergy, Café Network, CoffeeStop, CakeRider
freemium1OsmAnd4Outdooractive, iOverlander, Park4Night, Bike Citizens14Strava, climbfinder, PJAMM Cycling, Komoot, RideWithGPS, Bikemap, kurviger, Relive, Cyql, AllTrails, Wikiloc, Trailforks, Polarsteps, Warmshowers
paid006VeloViewer, 100 Greatest Cycling Climbs, Garmin Connect, Wahoo, Hammerhead, Couchsurfing
The same picture as numbers, for when you want the names. A darker box holds more services. A name with a line through it has shut down. A service named in more than one section is counted once. FATMAP is left out, it is gone and carries no price label. The stance and price for each one are the labels on its own bullet below.

Climbs & cols

Finding, rating and racing climbs, cols, gradients, segment times and KOMs.

  • Strava (Segments / Local Legends) · closed, freemium · API, restricted. Segment leaderboards worldwide. The agreement forbids redistributing what comes out of the API, and a third-party app may not show a rider's activity to anyone but that rider.
  • VeloViewer · closed, paid · API, restricted. Segment and climb analytics computed from Strava's API, so its numbers travel on Strava's terms, not its own.
  • climbfinder · closed, freemium · no export documented. European climb profiles.
  • CyclingCols · closed (community), free · no export documented. A community catalogue of cols across many countries.
  • myCols · closed, free · no export documented. Worldwide climbs, with a history per ascent.
  • PJAMM Cycling · closed, freemium · no export documented. Global climbs, with a proprietary difficulty index (PDI).
  • salite.ch · closed (volunteer), free · no export documented. A European archive, deepest on Italy and Switzerland.
  • cols-cyclisme.com · closed, free · no export documented. The French-speaking community's col reference.
  • quaeldich.de · closed (community), free · no export documented. German-language climb detail.
  • climbbybike.com · closed, free · no export documented. A pan-European climb index.
  • 100 Greatest Cycling Climbs (Simon Warren) · closed, paid · no export documented. A UK climb bucket-list, as a book and an app; GPX files are sold with it.
  • CyclingUp / Climb Index Europe / cycloclimbing · closed, free · no export documented. Volunteer European catalogues. Climb Index Europe does publish downloads, but they are climb maps and its own planner software, not the data behind them.

Fragmentation: twelve catalogues of largely the same European cols, and not one of them documents a way to get its data out. The only interface in the section is Strava's, and its agreement exists to stop what comes out of it travelling any further. So each new catalogue starts from zero, re-surveying cols that four other sites already hold.

Quality rides & ratings

Route planning, navigation, ride sharing, and cyclist-experience ratings (quietness, scenery, surface).

  • Komoot — closed, freemium. Surface/bike-type routing + a vast community Highlights layer & Trail View. Planning is free anywhere in the world; navigating, recording, and sending a route to your own Garmin or Wahoo need the region unlocked, by a one-time Maps purchase or a Premium subscription. Sold in 2025 to Bending Spoons, which let most of the team go: the terms a silo runs on belong to whoever owns it this year.
  • RideWithGPS — closed, freemium. Precise planning, cue sheets, club/event tooling.
  • Strava Routes / Heatmap — closed, freemium. Routes from aggregated activity; "where cyclists actually ride."
  • cycle.travel — mixed (OSM base), free. Genuinely quietness-optimised routing from real traffic data.
  • Bikemap — closed, freemium. Millions of user routes with surface filters.
  • CycleStreets — open (non-profit, OSM), free. Explicit fastest/balanced/quietest modes (UK).
  • Garmin Connect / Wahoo / Hammerhead — closed (with hardware). Popularity routing + Climb previews on devices.
  • Outdooractive — mixed, freemium. Large multi-sport route portal, strong in DACH.
  • BRouter — open-source, free. The configurable routing engine behind many other tools.
  • CyclOSM / OpenCycleMap — open (OSM), free. The open cycling map styles others embed.
  • kurviger / Relive / Cyql — closed, freemium. Scenic-road planning / ride videos / club ride org.
  • EuroVelo (European Cyclists' Federation) — open since 2024, free. 17 pan-European routes whose GPX tracks the ECF General Meeting placed under ODbL — the largest openly-licensed curated route set in Europe, and the counter-example to this section's pattern: a route network that chose to be shareable rather than a silo.

Fragmentation: a thin open spine exists (OSM, BRouter, CyclOSM, cycle.travel), but the mass-market layer is proprietary and cyclist-experience ratings are siloed per-app (private Highlights, heatmaps, surface tags) — no portable quality standard.

Scenic, views & heritage

Viewpoints, panoramas, photo spots, landmarks, cultural/heritage sites worth riding past.

  • Komoot Highlights — closed, freemium. The de-facto discovery layer for European cycle touring.
  • Strava — closed, freemium. POIs + popularity heat (not curated heritage).
  • Outdooractive — mixed, freemium. Tourism-board POIs and editorial tours (DACH/Alps).
  • AllTrails — closed, freemium. Popular viewpoints/photo spots, hiking-leaning.
  • Wikiloc — closed, freemium. Tens of millions of trails with geotagged waypoints (viewpoints, fountains, ruins).
  • Atlas Obscura — closed, free to browse. Offbeat cultural/heritage sites.
  • izi.TRAVEL — mixed, free. Location-triggered audio guides at heritage sites.
  • Wikipedia / Wikimedia Commons — open (CC), free. The canonical open heritage knowledge base + millions of geotagged photos — but not packaged for cyclists.
  • OpenStreetMap (tourism=viewpoint, historic=*) — open (ODbL), free. The upstream POI source most apps render.
  • Google Maps / Places — closed. Unmatched coverage + Street View, but ToS forbids bulk reuse.
  • Mapillary — mixed (Meta). Crowd street-level imagery; photos are CC BY-SA (open, and usable to trace into OSM), but the platform, derived data, and API are Meta-owned and under Meta's terms.
  • Polarsteps / Spotted by Locals — closed. Personal trip diaries / locals' city guides.
  • FATMAP — defunct — a 3D scenic-discovery map shut down by its owner Strava: a concrete example of a knowledge silo simply vanishing and taking its curated data with it.

Fragmentation: the open facts live in OSM and Wikipedia/Commons, but the layers cyclists actually use wall their curation into non-interoperable silos — and FATMAP's shutdown shows how fragile any single silo is.

Bike-friendly stays

Cyclist-friendly accommodation and hospitality networks.

Fragmentation: extreme. Cyclist-welcome quality is splintered across many incompatible national labels plus private aggregators, mainstream OTAs reduce it to a checkbox, and the community-owned options are small and don't interoperate.

Road surface & conditions

Surface type & quality, gravel/pavé, hazards, closures, traffic/safety, live conditions.

  • OpenStreetMap (surface= / smoothness= / tracktype=) — open (ODbL), free. The base layer nearly every tool reads — but coverage is patchy.
  • CyclOSM — open-source, free. The most complete free cycling map style (surfaces, cobbles, infra).
  • cycle.travel — mixed, free. Surface scoring + a "Cycling Quietness" traffic model.
  • BRouter — open-source, free. Gravel-favouring profiles weighting OSM surface tags.
  • Gravelmap — crowdsourced (non-profit), free. The largest dedicated unpaved-surface database — but its own silo.
  • Trailforks — closed (Outside/Pinkbike), freemium. The strongest real-time MTB trail-condition reporting.
  • Strava Heatmap / Metro — closed, freemium. Popularity signal — but no surface-quality info.
  • Bikemap / RideWithGPS / Komoot — closed, freemium. Surface display + comfort/popularity routing. Komoot's enhanced surface detail and gradient overlay are a Premium feature, so the surface fact itself is what the subscription buys.
  • Waze / Google Maps — closed, free. Real-time closures/hazards — but car-centric, thin on bike detail.
  • BikeMaps.org — open/non-profit, free. Crowd cyclist collisions/near-misses/hazards (academic, sparse).
  • OsmAnd — open-source core, freemium. Offline surface inspection in the field.
  • One.Network / roadworks.org — closed over public data, free. The official UK closure feed — but motor-framed.

Fragmentation: one shared open base (OSM tags) plus a constellation of incompatible proprietary silos — Strava's heat, Gravelmap's gravel DB, Trailforks' reports, Waze's closures — none interchanging data, the richest live signals closed and car-centric.

Water · food · services

Drinking water/refill, resupply (shops/bakeries), cyclist cafés, bike shops & repair stations, e-bike charging.

  • OpenStreetMap (amenity=drinking_water / bicycle_repair_station / shop=bicycle) — open (ODbL), free. The only cross-app shared source — but thinly mapped.
  • Refill — closed (UK charity), free. A large network of free tap-water refill points.
  • TrailTap / WeTap — crowdsourced, free. Cyclist/walker fountain & refill maps (UK / global, patchy coverage).
  • Komoot — closed, freemium. In-ride resupply/POI alerts along a route.
  • Google Maps — closed, free. The default resupply tool — but nothing cyclist-specific or refill-aware.
  • Bike Citizens — mixed, freemium. Urban cyclist navigation + bike-shop POIs.
  • OsmAnd / Organic Maps — open-source, free/freemium. Offline water/café/shop search where Google fails.
  • Bosch eBike Flow / BikeEnergy — closed (hardware), free at point of use. The leading e-bike charging maps — locked to brand/region.
  • Warmshowers — non-profit. Touring hosts (lodging, meals, water).
  • Café Network / CoffeeStop / CakeRider — closed, free. Small regional cyclist-café lists (mostly UK); Café Network stopped being updated and its site is down.
  • City open-data fountain datasets (NYC, Vienna, Vancouver…) — open, free. Authoritative within a city, each its own schema/portal.

Fragmentation: even more siloed than surface — refill points split across Refill/TrailTap/WeTap and dozens of incompatible city portals; e-bike charging fractured by hardware brand; cafés/repair/hosts each in their own list. No single source unifies water, food, repair and charging.

What the Commons does differently

One open dataset (ODbL) for the non-personal facts above, with a free query API and bulk exports, so the layers join up instead of fragmenting further. What a rider adds on top of somebody else's row is offered back to whoever holds it: to OpenStreetMap, and on the same terms to every other provider whose rows we carry, wherever their licence and their own process let them take it (how that works). Where good open data already exists (OSM, Wikimedia, open hospitality networks) we partner and link rather than wall off a copy.