mountain bike scale

I suggest to show on the map the difficulty of the path/track. Paths/tracks can be taged for MTB difficulty (see following link http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:mtb:scale ). I suggest to draw the path/track according to the difficulty scale. for example, mtb:scale=0 (no skill required) will l be shown as -.-.-.-.- mtb:scale=1 (basic skill required) will be shown as -…-…-…-… and so on. in addition i suggest to mark bicycle paths/tracks which are one way using the > sign.

I guess you are referring to the Israel Hiking Map, which is only a part of the Israel OSM effort.

Unfortunately, we do not have such a fine control on the way lines can be drawn. We are already using almost all of the available styles:

If it makes sense for mountain bikers, we can use the …_ notation for cycleways with a high mtb:scale

As far as I can tell, the information on one-way of tracks, cycleways, paths, and footways is limited and mostly unreliable. Moreover, for tracks (shared by vehicles, bicycles and foot) and paths (shared by bicycles and foot) it is usually unclear to which of the possible usages the one way restriction is referring. I’ll be happy to reconsider your suggestion when there is significant amount of data and that data is reliable.

Hi
I am refering to Israel hiking map
You are right that MTB Scale is not yet being tagged/used. I think the main reason is that it is not shown/rendered on most OSM maps and therefore not defined when one is creating/editing an MTB trail/path.
I think once rendered, MTB riders will define accordingly.
I suggest the following solutions:
A - to create a new " Israel Biking map" which will be a copy of the hiking map with the addition of textual/graphic MTB data. example for textual data: MTBS= 2 (for mtb:scale=2) or MTBUH=3 (for mtb:scaleuphill=3).
B - to add a layer to Israel hiking map which will show the MTB data either textual or graphic.

There is OpenMtbMap, that does what you want:

http://openmtbmap.org/

I don’t use their map because it has cryptic encoding for MTB difficulty, but maybe you will like it.


Regarding the idea of having a “new layer” in the hiking map: do additional layers already exist there? I tried but couldn’t find them. If there are none, I guess it’s not feasible to add one; you’d better create a separate new MTB map.


In addition, the following is a link to a forum (in Russian) that has a good MTB map for Israel. MTB difficulty is not rendered there, but you could persuade the map’s maintainer to add it (I wanted to do it once, but left it in favor of more urgent projects). The good thing about this map (and the reason I use it) is that it’s targeted for Garmin devices. Is this an important factor for you?

http://www.velik.org/index.php?option=com_jfusion&view=plugin&Itemid=210&jfile=index.php&topic=5962.0
(if you don’t understand Russian, just click on one of the four links at the top)

These are Garmin vector maps while IHM is a tile-server usefull for apps like Oruxmaps, Locus etc.

Please also check-out this Norwegian MTB map

It may be easier to combine its style with Israel Hiking style as I believe both are using Maperitive rules.

The styleset used on mtbmap.no is avaliable at http://mtbmap.no/maperitive/
It’s a work in progress, and mostly adjusted to work best in Norway, but I believe it will work fine anywhere in the world :slight_smile:

There is also a JOSM styleset for easy mtb:scale tagging: http://mtbmap.no/josm/

This Norwegian MTB map ( http://mtbmap.no/ ) looks great and gives the required info for MTB
I see it is limited to showing Norway only.
How can we go forward and see other regions (and specificly Israel) in this style ?

Both 4umaps http://www.4umaps.eu/online-outdoor-hike-bicycle-map.htm and sigma cycle http://www.gpsies.com/home.do;jsessionid=07C5CFDD43680E4EE5682C7E77B21FA7#15_31.83932122468829_34.922661781311035_sigmaCycle show MTB scale in Israel – the very little data that is available.

4umaps & sigma cycles are not the same quailty of “Norwegian MTB map” or “Israel Hiking Map” I would recommend to have a MTB textual data on IHM or implement an Israel MTB map similar to the Norwegian one.

Hi!
Thanks for the kind words about my Norwegian MTB map :slight_smile:
Out of curiosity I tried to render a small part of Israel using my Maperitive styleset: http://mtbmap.no/israel.php
It would need to be tweaked a bit, removing overlapping names etc… Zoom level compared to scale is different from Norway also, because of the map projection.

Superb - exactly what we need here for MTB - Thank You
I am sure that once implemented many/most trails will be tagged with the “mtb:scale” and within few months this will be “THE MTB MAP”
As you say - still needs to be tweaked (1) names of cities & villages are shown twice, sometimes overlapped (2) almost all the names in Hebrew language appear inverted (Hebrew is written from right to left, unlike European languages…) (3) scale looks OK, 2 or 3 more levels of zoom-in would be good to have.
Question (I am not a SW or OSM specialist…): how do we go forward from here on implementing this MTB map for Israel ?

I think you should contact user zstadler. As I understand it, he (among others?) made the Israel hiking map, using the same software as me. He seems to be more skilled regarding both programming and Maperitive :slight_smile:
The Israel hiking map is available on Github.
Think I will put my my latest styleset on Github also. But for now it’s available here: http://mtbmap.no/maperitive/

In Norway exactly this happened. At least in Trondheim (my city) and Oslo. From having close to no mtb-tagging, now most paths/tracks are tagged :slight_smile:

I just saw a change in the implementation of the IHM,that is - the trails are shown as a layer on the map and can be shown or removed.
I think it would be good to add MTB scale as a layer as well. Practically I think the MTB scale should be marked as in the norweigien MTB map, with a transperent color, so that this coloring will not obscure any other data.

The map looks great!

I’m still thinking about the right graphical approach to combine your excellent MTB notation with the Israel Hiking map notation.

In the meantime, it would be great if you could add the following definition to handle right-to-left names in Hebrew or Arabic in “draw: text” Maperitive rules

for : @isMatch(name, "[א-ת؀-ݭﬠ-ﻼ]")
  define
    text-direction : rtl

Hi
How can we go forward with implementing a layer of MTB Scale?
I think the MTB scale should be marked as in the norweigien MTB map ( http://mtbmap.no/ ) , with transperent colors, so that this coloring will not obscure any other data. I suggest to use the same 6 colors (per the 6 scale definitions) as in the norweigen map.
I think that once imlemented riders this will be “The MTB Map” in Israel

Try to raise this propsal at the GPS/mapping forum of groopy.co.il biking site.
Many more people read it than the people here and perhaps someone would like to take on the project.

http://groopy.co.il/forums.aspx?fid=33

I’ve released a preliminary version of an Israeli MTB Map, following the style of the Norwegian MTB map.

The map is available at http://osm.org.il/IsraelHiking/IsraelMTBmap.html

I’d like to thank Reitstoen for the excellent map style and for allowing me to re-use it.
I’d also like to thank YGMZ for repeatedly driving me to continue.

A few things are still missing, such as a proper legend.
Please feel free to post your feedback here.

If you like it, feel free to publish it with your friends and favorite forums.

Great Job, Zeev, a wonderful asset.
A few thoughts:

  1. For bikers it is more important if a path is rideable than if it was built for MTBs.
    I suggest to mark paths tagged bicycle=yes in blue, just like openCycleMap does.
  2. I would like to use your transparent SAMASH layer on top of this map, but it then becomes unclear what is the trail mark and what is the difficulty code. Particularly in single trails. Is there a way around that? maybe different widths? transparency values?
  3. Bike shops should appear in the map
  4. the Norwegian map shows scaled trails in bright yellow in lower zooms. This would allow locating “bike parks” more easily in Israel too.
  5. How about directions? Bikers need to know what the downhill direction of some trails is. The coding in OSM in Israel is pretty random right now, though.
  6. To get ideas how to deal with all this you can consult the gold standard in Israel, Shvil-net maps.

Thanks for the feedback!

It made me realize that I will not be able to drive the kind of development proposed above. For example, it’s easy to see that combining the Bicycle-related information with the Hiking-related information is a complex task, and the map is at risk of becoming too complex to read. I would be more than happy to help someone else take the lead on further improving the MTB map.

All I did is take the excellent style of the Norwegian MTB map and adapt it for Right-to-Left names and remove administrative boundaries that are less relevant in Israel.

Appearance on the map is directly determined by the Norwegian MTB map style and the OSM data. If that’s not the case, please give me a specific example, and I will try to debug.