These terms cover using the Cycling Commons website and account, in plain language.
Last updated 1 August 2026
By using the Cycling Commons website or creating an account, you agree to these terms and to our Privacy notice. If you don't agree, please don't use the service. The Commons is operated by BikeCoders (bikecoders.life) in the Netherlands, heading to an independent foundation as described in our governance.
You need to be at least 16 to create an account. The information you give us (such as your email) must be accurate and yours to use.
The Commons works because people use it in good faith.
You keep authorship of what you contribute. To let the Commons be open, you grant the licences in our contributor terms: data joins the Commons under the ODbL 1.0, media (photos, video) under CC BY-SA 4.0, and UI translations under AGPL-3.0-only.
You confirm that you have the right to contribute what you submit, that it doesn't infringe anyone else's rights, and that it isn't personal data about other people.
The Commons data and media are free for anyone to use, commercial use included, under their licences, with attribution. UI translations are free to use too, under the code licence, which asks for source rather than credit alone. See the developer docs for the attribution line, and for the API and bulk export as they are being designed — neither is live yet.
The platform source is free software under the GNU Affero General Public License v3: anyone may run it, study it, change it and share it, commercial use included. What the licence asks back is source. Run a changed version and let people use it over a network, and you owe those people your source too. The "Cycling Commons" name and logo are not covered by that licence and stay with the project, which AGPL section 7(e) expressly allows. What you may do with them is set out in our trademark policy.
The service is provided "as is" and "as available", without warranties of any kind, to the fullest extent permitted by law. We don't guarantee it will be accurate, uninterrupted, or error-free.
To the fullest extent permitted by Dutch law, BikeCoders is not liable for indirect or consequential loss arising from your use of the Commons. Nothing in these terms limits liability that cannot be limited by law.
You can close your account at any time in settings. We may suspend or end access if these terms are broken or to protect the Commons or its users.
Before you go, you can download everything we hold about you as a single ZIP file from the same page. Closing your account removes your personal data. Two things stay, and neither names you afterwards: the contributions you gave to the open map, and the record that you granted a photo licence, which we keep as evidence that the licence exists. Photos you had approved stay in the Commons under CC BY-SA 4.0, and you choose on your way out whether they keep your name or become anonymous.
The Commons is built from what riders add, so some of it has to be checked. This section says what we take down, who decides, what you are told, and what you can do about it.
A curator decides, and a curator is a person. Curators are riders who applied and were accepted, they work to a written rulebook, and every decision they make is recorded with their name against it.
Nothing is removed by software alone. Automated checks do run, and they flag things for a curator to look at, but they never decide. The one exception works the other way round and is there to protect people, not to judge them: a report of intimate imagery or of a child hides the photo immediately, before any person has seen the report, and a curator then reviews it.
If something you added is removed or changed, we tell you, and we tell you why. The message names what it was about and the ground it was decided on. You will find it in your messages.
Reply to that message and a curator reads it. If you would rather go outside the account, or you no longer have one, write to us on the contact page. A decision is not final because it was made once; a curator who got it wrong can put it back.
Anyone can report content, with or without an account. Use the contact form, or the report link on the photo itself. We acknowledge every report, and we tell you what we decided. Photos have their own report link on every photo page.
Short list, and we would rather you knew it than guessed:
What you may not upload. No AI-generated images, and no altered scenes. Ordinary editing is fine, with AI tools or without: crop it, straighten it, tone it, sharpen it, take the noise out. Inventing or removing something that was there is not, and neither is a picture a model made. The one change we ask for: blur faces and number plates before you upload. The consent you tick before uploading says so, and it is a ground for removal.
We are not claiming compliance with anything by writing this. The EU AI Act's transparency rules start applying on 2 August 2026, and it is arguable how far they reach a description of a water tap. We would tell you either way, because a map is only worth having if you can tell what a person put on it.
These terms are governed by the law of the Netherlands. Disputes will be subject to the competent Dutch courts, unless mandatory consumer law gives you other rights.
We may update these terms; we'll post changes here with a new date. Continuing to use the Commons after a change means you accept the updated terms.
Questions about these terms: info@cyclingcommons.org (or use the Contact).
So we can tell you what happened. It is not shown to anybody, not even to curators.
Paste a screenshot with Ctrl+V (Cmd+V). Up to 3.
We will tell you what happened to it.