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

Tool	Purpose
plan_route	Route through 2+ waypoints (coordinates or place names) and return distance, ascent/descent, estimated riding time, surface and way-type breakdown, turn instructions, a shareable bikerouter.de link, and optionally a saved GPX/GeoJSON/KML/CSV file.
compare_profiles	Route the same waypoints with several profiles (e.g. trekking vs gravel vs fastbike) and compare distance, time, climb and paved share side by side.
geocode_place	Turn a place name, address or POI into coordinates (via Photon, the geocoder bikerouter.de uses).
list_profiles	List the known routing profiles, optionally verifying which ones the routing host actually serves.
get_profile_options	Read a profile's .brf source and list the parameters it exposes (avoid_unsafe, allow_ferries, totalMass, bikerPower, …) for use with plan_route's profile_options.

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

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:

Variable	Default	Meaning
BIKEROUTER_HOST	https://brouter.de	Host serving the BRouter /brouter routing endpoint. bikerouter.de is only the web frontend and 404s here, so this defaults to brouter.de. Point it at http://localhost:17777 to use your own BRouter server.
BIKEROUTER_WEB_URL	https://bikerouter.de	Web UI used for the shareable map links.
BIKEROUTER_PROFILES_URL	<host>/brouter/profiles2/, then <host>/profiles/, then <web>/profiles/	Where .brf profile sources live (used by get_profile_options).
BIKEROUTER_GEOCODER_URL	https://photon.komoot.io/api	Photon-compatible geocoder.
BIKEROUTER_DEFAULT_PROFILE	trekking	Profile used when the caller does not name one.
BIKEROUTER_TIMEOUT_MS	60000	HTTP timeout. Long routes can take a while.
BIKEROUTER_USER_AGENT	bikerouter-mcp/0.1.0	Sent with every request.

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).