“SK53 is one such” - Nice one. :)

Being able to map on the go on my phone has been life changing for me. Thanks for all your work Bryce. I’m not a tech person but will converting it to Swift make it easier to create an Android version?

ChrisHodgesUK - great to hear about your experiences of the quality of mapping of cycle trails in the UK. It’s very variable isn’t it! But I’m as much to blame as anyone - the way I map them seems to be constantly changing! :)

Thanks for that Martin. It’s really good to hear from users of the tags like you and Richard and get an insight into which tags you use. I will try to include tracktype in my future mapping of paths and bridleways because both you and Richard use it in cycle routing. I hesitate to ask but do you feel that some of us are taking the wiki too literally when we use tracktype as a measure of softness alone. Do you software writers use it as a general indication of the trail quality - tracktype=1 means great for wheeled vehicles, tracktype=4 means terrible for wheeled vehicles? It won’t be the first time that I’ve been told that I take the wiki too literally :)

Westnordost - You are doing a great job. The extra pictures are already making the smoothness wiki a lot clearer. Thanks. I’ll start taking pictures of trails and see if I can get anything useful.

bradrh - Thanks for that. Trailforks is bigger than mtbproject over here. I think this is probably the future for downhill mtb (and some other sports like climbing) - the specialist app/site has the specialist info overlayed onto OSM which gives the access routes. I will carry on using smoothness and mtb_scale on the gentle trails that I tend to be mapping but will have a look at the IMBA scale as well. PS I had noticed the 40% in the wiki as well. That is very very steep!

Thanks Supaplex030. Yes I absolutely agree. Smoothness is a really useful tag. But I can understand Richards scepticism - a lot of the smoothness mapping here in Sheffield UK does not fit the information in your very helpful links. I wonder how many new mappers are aware of the wiki information on tags. I certainly wasn’t when I started :) I wonder if you have any thoughts about my ideas on mapping non-asphalt trails with ‘smoothness’ and ‘mtb_scale’ smoothness-bad = mtb_scale-0 smoothness-very bad=mtb_scale-1 smoothness-horrible = mtb_scale-2 Great to hear from you. John

Thanks for that Richard. It’s great to hear from someone who is writing software to use our mapping! I’ve just been looking at your cycle.travel site. It’s great! The routing works really well here in South Yorkshire. I’ve sent links to my family.
I sort of agree about smoothness. I do feel that it’s a great idea for a tag but having words for the values instead of numbers means that mappers who haven’t studied the wiki are, with the best intentions, putting very wrong values on paths. The crushed limestone you mention (‘inch to dust’ is what our local builders merchant calls it :) might be smoothness=excellent to a mountain biker but smoothness =horrible to a skateboarder.
You recommend including the tracktype tag. I do put it on tracks but have doubted it’s value for cyclists - a ‘solid’ surface might be smooth but it might be very very rough. But perhaps I’m overthinking it. If routing software like yours is using the tracktype values do you feel that it would be useful for me to put that tag on paths and bridleways as well? Cheers John

Thanks Christiana :)

Hi Andy Good to hear from you. We have a great symbiotic relationship with OSM don’t we. The map gets improved while we get to walk in different areas and our walks have a purpose. I do feel under pressure though. Our son and daughter and all their friends depend on Strava/Komoot/Viewranger/AllTrails/ etc for their outdoor activities. ie OSM. And there are still areas around here with lots of public footpaths unmapped to say nothing of the unofficial paths. I use the MapThePaths site to help with public footpaths etc. https://www.mapthepaths.org.uk/ Highly recommended. Cheers John