Map Legend and Map Layout Styles

The classic Layout. The only difference to the wide layout is the thinner streets. Optimal for lower DPI garmin devices.

The Classic legacy – notice the different colours of the main streets/highways.

The Wide layout – same as classic but all lines are wider – for higher DPI devices

The Wide legacy – again different main street colours

The easy layout – it doesn’t include things like cyclelanes/cycletracks that run parralel to other roads, or mtb:scale:uphill difficulty. Otherwise identical to Wide.

The hiking Layout – more details about the difference on the MTB specific screenshot in the next section. The pathes are not colored according to MTB difficulty but according to hiking difficulty. It does show cycling routes and mtb routes but they are shown weakly so if you want to avoid mtb routes you can, walking, foot routes are shown prominently. Also of course no other mountainbike/cycling specific information.

The Simple Topographical map layout – it is more simplified vs the hiking layout . Also it shows hiking, mtb, and cycling routes all only very thin/not prominent. For example there is no differentiation between highway=track / highway=service & tracktype=grade1/tarmac and highway=residential roads.

The Desktop layout – the colors and features/objects are similar to Wide  but it has much less contrast. So it is much more pleasing to the eye on a big screen. However on your GPS device it will be much harder to read. You can use it if you always follow tracks (not routes) and want them to pop out more.

The winter layout – same as easy but additonaly shows sledge trails, nordic skiing  trails and so on. Normal ski-slopes are also visible in the other layouts as they exist all year round. This layout has many things that are only visible in winter.

The Fenix layout – this is here only for completion – it uses the best colours for the 64 colour display of the Fenix 5/6/7 series – however note on your watch they will look quite differently to the screenshot here. The features shown are a bit reduced as the display size is very small so to show the most important things for mtb / cycling only. It has very wide lines 

Notice the dashed lines showing Nordic skiing slopes in Ramsau am Dachstein which is famous for nordic skiing. Also shows sledge trails or some more features that are only visible in winter and removed for summer. Ski Slopes are usually well visible in summer too so visible in all openmtbmap layouts.

The blue dots for example are winter hiking trails – only existing in winter (usually a groomed trail on a field).

An example to show the difference of the Hiking layout not showing features for mtbikers to make the map easier but also usable for hikers.

First the wide layout with all features for mtbiking

now the a bit reduced easy layout (notice the mtb:scale:uphill information is missing)

now the Hiking layout (hiking routes are black dashed):

OpenMTBMap Standard features layout (as on Wide layout) – vs the Easy layout – and later VeloMap inner city example

vs the easy layout missing the blue arrows for against oneway cyclelane on the center road. Also the living streets is shown as a normal residential street in the easy layout – I left out some not so important features and simplified them. Also the POI are less visible for shops and restaurants uncluttering the map.

VeloMap Wide layout – nearly identical inside the city to the OpenMTBMap wide layout. The big difference to the OpenMTBMap is that some footways/pathes that are likely not allowed to be cycled, or not good surface are only shown very thinly. So better for commuting/riding fast.

This is of course much more distinct if in some forest/mountain. Note it also misses the cycle route, that is because I used an older map for this screenshot when the cycle route was not yet built/present in Openstreetmap.

The VeloMap Wide Easy Layout – same as the OpenMTBMap Easy layout – removed the cyclelanes/cycletracks parallel to roads, and simplified some things like living streets.

The VeloMap Racing / Road Bike Layout – the difference will be more visible outside cities to the easy layout. – note previously it did not show buildings. I re included them because you now can remove the buildings alltogether (do not install them, or use the gmapsupp.img downloads instead of sending via MapInstall)

The Velo Layout – thinner lines for low DPI devices. Street colours similar to google maps (though a bit more orange/red to still see differences in size of streets)

The Velo Legacy Layout – Germany style street colours for very easy differentiation of the main streets. Same width as Velo.

The Velo Wide Layout – same as Velo but wider streets for newer/higher DPI Garmin devices

Wide Easy Layout – does not include cycletracks or cyclelanes that are parallel to streets and some more for most not important things.

Look further down to the Inner City section to see the actual difference.

The Road Bike / Racing layout – this leaves out many things not interesting for a road biker to quicker identify the streets useful for road biking. Note that if you do not want the buildings – then leave out the buildings layer (buildings add too much clutter for road biking in my opinion)

The Simple Topo – Simple Topographical map layout. It is simplified to not show any information that a normal topographical map would also not show. So for example highway=track & tracktype=grade 1 (tarmac) is shown the same as highway=residential. Service roads are also shown like residential roads. It’s the easiest to understand and get used layout. Cycle routes are only shown thinly – not prominently like in other layouts.

The Desktop Layout – Same as Wide but much less contrast. This is much nicer to look at on big screens / desktop but not very useful on your Garmin GPS device – except if you want the map to be low contrast to have higher contrast for the pink colour of the GPX tracks.

The Fenix Layout – heavily reduced and colour adapted layout for the small displays of Fenix 5/6/7 watches which can only show 64 colours. It looks actually a bit different on your watch than the screenshot – though also differs a lot due to angle/sun/backlight

Sometimes people ask me should I use OpenMTBMap or VeloMap – let’s put it clearly. If you are commuting or road biking or recreational cycling the VeloMap is much quicker and easier to read – because it has way less information. Here I show an example without contourlines and without buildings. If you want to hike or mtbike you need more information, you want more prominent trails so the map becomes more complicated to read. For Gravel I think in general the OpenMTBMap is more useful. For riding a trekking bike because you frequently have bad surface quality – but you prefer good surface over gravel roads just not huge roads with cars – the VeloMap will usually be better.

vs the much simpler VeloMap – both wide layout. Note you can add the buildings and contourlines to the VeloMap.