America’s Top Bike Friendly Cities

Bike riding is one the most easily accessible, adventurous and fun activities that you can do on vacation. All you need to do is get or rent a bike and go out whenever you feel like riding. No shortage of roads can stop you; you can ride rocky terrains, city parks or country lanes as you like. It’s all dependent on your choice. Here, we’ll tell you the most bike-friendly cities in America.

The most crucial factor is that you have a good environment. That is, the city you live in or visit is bike-friendly. Check to see that there isn’t too much traffic to ride in between, there are a number of bikers around, and there us an availability of bike shops for buying the best full suspension bikes. Apart from these, there are many other factors that contribute to making your city bike-friendly.

6 Most Bike-Friendly Cities In America 2021

As the pandemic hit the country, the majority of people switched to bike riding for traveling and exercise, which even led to a shortage of bikes. It was found that the extent to which one enjoys riding bikes was dependent on the city they live in. Various factors such as length of biking lanes, climate and weather, biking community, access to repair shops, and many more decide if your city is bike-friendly or not. Let’s take a look at the top bike-friendly cities in America:

1. San Francisco, California

Even after having challenging hilly terrains, San Francisco ranks as the top city for bikers. The temperature in San Francisco never rises above 80 nor goes below 30, which makes the environment perfect for frequent cycling.p

According to the latest surveys, around 3.8% of people bike to work every day. The biking community in San Francisco is quite large, which makes it the best bike-friendly city in America.

2. Minneapolis, Minnesota

Minneapolis has the highest bike score among other cities. With a population of around 3.9% biking to work every day, it also has long-protected biking lanes that give it the second spot on this list.

Minneapolis has excellent biking infrastructure, there are not many hills and most locations are easy to access. With a dedicated biking community, it won’t be a surprise if Minneapolis comes to be known as the bike city.

3. Washington, DC

Washington, DC has around 4% of bikers riding to work every day. It also has miles of protected bike lanes. The only area it fails to be the top bike-friendly city in America is its number of bike fatalities compared to other cities on the list.

Washington, DC offers upto 150 miles of bike lanes to explore. They have education programs to ensure the safety of the biking community.

4. Portland, OR

Portland has the highest percentage of workers biking to work every day (5.2%). It also ranks second in bike score. The reason for Portland being 4th on the list is because of its climate conditions.

It has more precipitation days than other cities, making the weather sometimes unsuitable and unsafe for biking. It has bike lanes to explore every part of the city. Some of the best bike routes are:

Kelly Point Park
Eastbank Esplanade
Skyline Boulevard to Sauvie Island
Suds and Grounds

5. Seattle, Washington

Seattle has even more precipitation days than Portland, which is not ideal for bikers who do not have protective rain gear. People in Seattle can afford rain gear, but the income ranking is not as high as it ideally should be, putting Seattle this low on the list.

Seattle does offer some beautiful bike trails to explore, few of them are:

Burke-Gilman Trail
Elliot Bay Trail
Bainbridge Island
Lake Union Loop
Interurban Trail

Residents and visitors love to explore Emerald City with bikes. The beautiful spots are a must to visit if you love biking.

6. Irvine, California

Irvine is perfect in terms of weather; it has a very low number of precipitation days, which is favorable for bikers. It even has a good income percentage indicating that people there can buy bike gear and necessary equipment.

But then why is it 6th on the list, right? This is because of the comparatively high number of bike fatalities in this city which puts Irvine in the 6th spot.

These were our six best bike-friendly cities in America. There are more cities to this list which are listed below:

Denver
St. Paul
Chicago
Los Angeles

You must be wondering about how do we rank these cities; here is the list of factors that decide how the cities are placed on the list:

Bike score
Miles of protected bike lanes
The average income of the city
The average number of precipitation days
Bike fatalities

Final Thoughts

The best bike-friendly cities are on the western side. This is because of the excellent weather conditions, which puts most of the western cities on the list.

Many cities on this list do not have sufficient protected bike lanes, which means more protected bike lanes need to be. If riding bikes is not a part of your lifestyle, it is an amazing way to relieve stress and a super-economical way to travel.