VeloPair

An open data standard for describing riders, bikes and riding styles, and the compatibility between them.

Any application should be able to receive a Rider Profile and a Bike Profile and understand them without knowing anything about the application that created them. The standard defines the data and its meaning. Scoring engines compete on top of it.

RIDER.json  +  RIDE_PROFILE.json  +  BIKE.json
                      |
             compatibility engine (yours, theirs, anyone's)
                      |
                  Match: 91/100

Design principles (settled)

1. Data, not scores. The standard defines inputs and their meanings. Different companies compute different scores from the same data. The standard stays neutral.
2. Extend, don't compete. Bike-side data reuses existing industry work (BIDEX geometry levels, Veloconnect exchange) wherever possible. VeloPair is the missing rider/ride-style/compatibility layer, not another bike database.
3. Small v0.1. Four objects (Rider, Ride Profile, Bike, Compatibility), ~90 well-defined fields with units and enums. JSON Schema. Boring and interoperable.
4. Implementations before formalization. Spec on GitHub, then two or three independent implementations proving interoperability, then industry conversations. Formal standards bodies come last, not first.

The landscape (why this exists)

Mapped before drafting; full citations in docs/RESEARCH.md:

• Zero open standards describe the rider, their riding style, or rider-bike compatibility. The slot was empty, checked three independent ways.
• About nine proprietary fitting and sizing systems do this job behind closed doors. Proven demand, locked data.
• Two industry standards describe bicycle product data. VeloPair maps onto them rather than redefining geometry.
• Three activity formats record rides. None carry a portable rider profile.

Implementations

This section lists only shipped, verifiable implementations.

• Moofment (iOS), producer: exports a VeloPair bundle (rider, measured ride profile, bike) from its Bike Passport as an explicit share action.
• VeloPair MCP server (mcp/, npm: velopair), consumer: validates documents, provides authoring templates, and scores pairings with the open, non-normative velopair-reference-engine. Install: claude mcp add velopair -- npx -y velopair.
• VeloPair skill (skills/velopair/): authoring and validation guidance for AI coding agents.

With one producer and one consumer implemented against real data, v0.1.0 has passed the release-candidate gate defined in CONTRIBUTING.md. Building an implementation? Open an issue.

Licensing

Specification prose (SPEC.md, docs) is CC-BY-4.0; schemas and examples are Apache-2.0. See LICENSE, schemas/LICENSE, examples/LICENSE and the licensing rationale in docs/RESEARCH.md section 6.

Status

v0.1.0, published 2026-08-18, release-candidate gate passed (one producer, one consumer). Spec site: velopair.org. Research findings with primary-source citations: docs/RESEARCH.md. Schemas: schemas/ (JSON Schema 2020-12), validated worked examples for the two founding personas: examples/. Former working name RideDNA, dropped after the collision check in docs/RESEARCH.md section 7.