Improve the map
This map does not belong to us. It is built from OpenStreetMap, which anyone can add to — including you, from your phone, in ten minutes and without knowing anything about map-making.
What you can add, and what is really missing
It is not the paths that are missing: they are drawn almost everywhere. What is missing is what you only know by having been there.
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The state of the surface
Smooth tarmac, gravel, sand, roots? That is what decides whether you can take a child or a trailer there. It is the most asked-for information, and the one most often missing.
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Sharing with pedestrians
A separate cycle path and a shared promenade do not ride the same way. The distinction exists in the data, and it is almost always empty.
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Lighting, width, barriers
A spot a cargo bike cannot get through, a chicane at the end of a path, a stretch with no light in winter: none of that can be guessed from a desk.
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Hazards announced by a sign
A junction, an uneven road, cyclists emerging, animals crossing. They then show up on the map, with the matching sign. Very few are recorded, for the whole of France — the tag exists, and it is almost empty.
The rule, in one sentence
OpenStreetMap only accepts what someone else can go and check on the spot. A surface, a width, a sign: yes. “I am scared here”: no — not out of contempt for how you feel, but because nobody can confirm it for you. How you feel, tell us directly instead.
Three ways to do it, from the simplest to the most precise
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1. Leave a note — no account, two minutes
On openstreetmap.org, open the menu on the right and choose “add a note”. You write what you saw, at the exact place: “path badly broken up for 200 m”, “chicane impossible to get through with a trailer”. Someone else will turn it into data. It is the way in, and it is enough.
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2. StreetComplete — a free account, no skills needed
This Android app asks you simple questions about what is around you: “what is the surface of this path?”, “is this street lit?”. You answer, and it is sent. It is the best tool for an outing with others.
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3. The website's editor — to set the exact tag
From a computer, the “Edit” button on OpenStreetMap. That is where you write
surface=gravel,smoothness=bad,segregated=no,lit=no,width=2.5, or a reported hazard such ashazard=damaged_road. The table below gives the most useful cases on a bike.
The most useful tags
| What you see | What you write |
|---|---|
| Surface | surface=asphalt, compacted, gravel, sand |
| State of the surface | smoothness=good, intermediate, bad |
| Shared with pedestrians, with no separation | segregated=no |
| Usable width, in metres | width=2.5 |
| Lighting | lit=yes or lit=no |
| Chicane, barrier at the end of a path | barrier=cycle_barrier |
| Bike parking | amenity=bicycle_parking, capacity=20, covered=yes |
| The sign standing on the spot | What you write |
|---|---|
| Dangerous junction | hazard=dangerous_junction |
| Cyclists emerging (A21) | hazard=cyclists |
| Dip, uneven road (A2a) | hazard=damaged_road |
| Road narrows (A3) | hazard=road_narrows |
| Children, school (A13a) | hazard=children |
| Animals crossing (A15b) | hazard=animal_crossing |
Add the sign's code when you have photographed it —
traffic_sign=FR:A21 for example: that is what makes your record
indisputable.
Two mistakes not to make
A priority sign is not a hazard. The mistake is common: people tag as “hazard” every sign they come across, roundabouts and town entry signs included, and the record becomes unusable. Report what warns of a risk, nothing else.
Never copy Google Maps or any other privately owned base map. The source must be your own record, or a photo you took yourself. That is the condition that protects everyone's work.
And then?
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Straight away
Your addition is visible on OpenStreetMap, with its date. Nothing is lost, everything can be undone, and nobody can claim it as their own.
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A few days later
It appears on this map, and on every map that reads OpenStreetMap — including our competitors'. That is intended: a cyclist's work must not belong to any company.
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For a long time
Your record depends neither on VELO, nor on an association, nor on a contractor. If one of them disappears, it stays.
Would you rather tell us?
That is fine too. A way closed to bikes that does not show up, a path that no longer exists, a shop that has closed: write to us, or tap “report an error” in the details of a point on the map. We correct by hand, and we pass the correction on to OpenStreetMap.
Are you an association?
One morning of surveying together fills in more boxes than ten years of isolated contributions. Two tips drawn from what we see elsewhere: settle on a shared survey sheet — place, category, photo, one sentence — and do the data entry in the evening, in peace, rather than on the pavement. And if your area wants its own layer on this map, with its routes and its points of interest, tell us.