Cyclemate Bike Routing API

Safe turn-by-turn cycling directions and multi-modal bike-share routing for developers — authentication, rate limits, and response format.

Welcome to Cyclemate API

Cyclemate provides 2 public APIs for bike routing. These APIs are designed to help developers build cycling-focused applications with rich routing capabilities and bike-share integration.

Authentication

An API key is required. All API requests must include your key as a bearer token in the Authorization header:

Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY

Getting an API key

API access is granted per application — signing up for a Cyclemate account on its own doesn’t provision a key for third-party use.

For third-party developers:

1. Contact our team to request API access
2. We’ll issue you an API key
3. Include the key in the Authorization header on every request

Example request

curl -X POST https://api.cyclemate.com/directions/ \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"origin": [-73.9851, 40.7589], "destination": [-73.9712, 40.7614]}'

Rate Limiting

Requests are rate-limited to keep the service fast and fair for everyone. Authenticated requests are allowed a higher rate than anonymous ones. If you need higher limits for your application, contact us.

Each response includes an X-RateLimit-Remaining header so you can track your remaining budget for the current window.

Exceeding Rate Limits

If you exceed your rate limit, you’ll receive a 429 Too Many Requests response:

{
  "error": "Rate limit exceeded",
  "details": "Too many requests. Please try again later.",
  "retry_after": 45
}

The retry_after field indicates how many seconds to wait before making another request.

Best Practices

• Cache responses when possible to reduce API calls
• Implement exponential backoff when receiving 429 responses
• Batch requests when feasible
• Contact us if you need higher rate limits for your application

Public APIs

Directions

Turn-by-turn directions with super-safe bike routing

Multi-Modal Routing

Multi-modal routing with bike-share integration

Response Format

All API endpoints return JSON responses with the following general structure:

Success Response:

{
  "data": {},
  "metadata": {}
}

Error Response:

{
  "error": "Error message",
  "details": "Additional error details"
}

Coordinate Format

All coordinates in the API use the standard [longitude, latitude] format (GeoJSON standard), unless otherwise specified.

• Longitude: -180 to 180 (East-West position)
• Latitude: -90 to 90 (North-South position)

API Overview

Endpoint	Method	Description	Auth Required
/directions/	POST	Turn-by-turn directions	✅ Yes (API key)
/multi-modal/	POST	Multi-modal bike-share routing	✅ Yes (API key)

Support

For questions, issues, or feature requests, please contact our team.