bikerouter-mcp

An MCP server that plans bike routes with bikerouter.de — the BRouter-Web frontend by Norbert Renner on top of the BRouter engine by Arndt Brenschede, routing on OpenStreetMap data.

Point any MCP client (Claude Code, Claude Desktop, …) at it and ask things like "plan a gravel route from Cologne to Bonn along the Rhine and give me the GPX".

What it can do

Sample plan_route output:

**Route** (profile: `trekking`)
Alexanderplatz, Berlin → Brandenburger Tor, Berlin

- Distance: **5.2 km**
- Estimated riding time: **20 min** (⌀ 15.6 km/h, from the profile's physics model)
- Ascent: **80 m** / descent: **60 m**
- Elevation: 35–55 m (start 35 m, end 55 m)

- Surfaces: asphalt 76.9% (4 km), gravel 23.1% (1.2 km)
- Way types: cycleway 38.5% (2 km), residential 38.5% (2 km), track 23.1% (1.2 km)

Open in bikerouter.de: https://bikerouter.de/#map=14/52.518154/13.396327/standard&lonlats=…&profile=trekking

Related MCP server: Hiking MCP Server

Install

cd bikerouter-mcp
npm install     # also builds via the prepare script
npm test

Register it with Claude Code:

claude mcp add bikerouter -- node /absolute/path/to/bikerouter-mcp/dist/index.js

or add it to claude_desktop_config.json / any other MCP client:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "bikerouter": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/absolute/path/to/bikerouter-mcp/dist/index.js"]
    }
  }
}

No API key is needed — the service is free and unauthenticated.

Configuration

All optional, set as environment variables:

How it maps onto the BRouter API

Requests are plain GET /brouter calls, exactly as documented in BRouter's ServerHandler.java:

/brouter?lonlats=lon,lat|lon,lat&nogos=lon,lat,radius,weight|…&profile=trekking
        &alternativeidx=0&format=geojson&timode=1&straight=0&profile:avoid_unsafe=true

• waypoints → lonlats (place names are geocoded first, biased towards the previous waypoint)

• avoid_areas → nogos (omit weight for a hard no-go)

• straight_from → straight (beeline legs)

• profile_options → profile:NAME=VALUE

• alternative_index → alternativeidx (1–3 for alternative routes)

• turn_instructions → timode (voice hints in the GeoJSON response)

The GeoJSON response is summarised locally: track length, filtered ascend, total-time and total-energy come from the track properties, descent is derived from the filtered ascent and the net height change, and the surface / way-type / smoothness breakdown is aggregated from the messages table (WayTags weighted by Distance).

Limitations worth knowing

• Routing quality is OpenStreetMap quality. Missing surface or access tags produce odd detours; always sanity-check a route on the returned map link before riding it.

• BRouter has no street names, so turn instructions read "in 1.2 km turn right" without a road name. That is a property of the engine, not of this server.

• Estimated riding time comes from the profile's physics model (rider mass, power, drag). Override totalMass, bikerPower, maxSpeed via profile_options for a realistic figure.

• Elevation needs SRTM coverage; above ~60°N/S the track comes back without elevations and the summary says so.

• The public service is a free, community-run instance — keep request volume modest, or run your own BRouter server and set BIKEROUTER_HOST.

• Profiles differ per server. list_profiles ships a catalog of the stock BRouter/BRouter-Web profiles; pass verify: true to check what a given host really serves.

Tests

npm test builds the server and runs node --test:

• unit tests for URL building, waypoint validation, .brf parameter parsing and the GeoJSON summariser

• an end-to-end test that speaks MCP over stdio to the real server binary against a stub BRouter host, covering routing, GPX export, profile listing and BRouter's plain-text error responses

The tests never touch the public service, so they run offline.

Credits and licence

Server code: MIT. It is a client only — routing is done by BRouter (MIT) through BRouter-Web / bikerouter.de, on map data © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL).