thdave

Being a regular bike commuter at home in Cleveland, I was anxious to try out bicylcing in Boulder on my recent business trip there. So, I didn't rent a car and instead rode the Super Shuttle from the Denver airport to my hotel and borrowed a bike from a colleague I was visiting. I stayed at the Millenium Harvest Hotel, conveniently located right on the Boulder Creek bike path, for 3 nights.

Boulder is a remarkable town for bicycling and I enjoyed the trip tremendously. There's no better way to explore a city like that than via bike. There's so many cyclists that it felt like Amsterdam.

A couple of things I noted were that the cagers were more welcoming there than in Cleveland. I'm sure it's since they are more used to you. Also, there are a multitude of bikepaths besides the
greenways" that are simply double wide sidewalks. I'd have thought those would create typical sidewalk issues, but they didn't. Cars seem to stop for them and take them more seriously than the single width sidewalk. I'm sure that's since these are used so much more often than regular sidewalks.

The bike traffic on the Boulder Creek bike path took some getting used to, because it was so busy and it had some wrong way camber turns. Yet it worked well and was so beautiful. I get a charge out of biking with so many people. Maybe I'd tire of that, but I doubt it.

One unusual architecture item was that a couple of buildings didn't face their respective streets. The public library was right off the bike path and the creek. It faced another government building--not sure what it was--and with a large yard between the two. They were in a park setting that was convenient to the cyclist, to kids, as well as the cager.

Many congrats to Boulder and Colorado for having such an infrastructure. It was a true joy to use it.

In comparison to Cleveland, well, there is no comparison. We have a nice bike path along the Rocky River that I use, but it's 4ft. wide, not 8 and in places I take the road because of that. It's not integrated with other pathways, although it does go around the county as an "Emerald Necklace." But it's for recreation not transportation.

nelson249

I had a similar reaction when I was in Ottawa last week. I was positively lusting over the infrastructure around the Rideau Canal and the Rockcliffe Parkway. We have trails here but most of them are meant for locals to tool around after work not actually get anywhere.

Oh well, it would be wonderful to live in a city where there is actual PLANNING and gobs of federal cash to make said planning effective.

DataJunkie

I like Boulder but it is so damn busy. Give me the outlying small towns or Golden instead. Cycling isn't just big in Boulder but in that whole area and is slowly spreading. Perhaps someday it will hit my POC suburb.

bkrownd

Meh, Boulder is about average for the bike situation. Two of the things I remember the most about Boulder were massive hellish traffic jams and couches burning in the intersections. At least the bus was still free when I lived there. I've lived in several better places to bike. As the monkey said, it's too busy and trafficy for its own good. They should build massive parking ramps on the outskirts and ban non-resident automobiles. Then we'd be getting somewhere!

I don't really remember an unusual number of people on bikes when I lived there. Pretty normal levels for a college town.

I used to live in Harvest Manor, across the back parking lot from that hotel.

thdave

To me, the big deal was the numerous 8 foot wide sidewalks and 8 foot wide bike path. It's a big improvement over the 4 to 6 foot paths we have in Cleveland. I plan to communicate this to our metropark system in Cleveland.

wheel

There is a great regional bus system. (nice plush seats)
It goes Airport to Downtown, then Downtown to Boulder with one or two stops I am guessing.

I am car free and loved the transit. I also did the boogie

Oregon Southpaw

A trend I've noticed:

Wherever you live, you start hating the bicycle infrastructure, no matter how amazing it is.

Bah Humbug

I think calilng Boulder "average" for cycling is ridiculous; it may not be the best, but it's a damn sight better than most. The only problem is you can't get exercise on the MUPs, due to that traffic, but venture out of town and you can get as much as you want. The drivers, as mentioned, are very accommodating, much more so than any other place I've seen.

markf

I'm going to guess that you've never been to Amsterdam, am I right?

My most vivid memory of Amsterdam, after spending a few days there in 1972, was watching the ferry that crossed the harbor in back of the main train station. Hordes of bicycles flying off the ferry, an awful lot of mopeds and motor scooters, and one or two cars looking very lost and out of place among all those cyclists. Even back then I knew that that was the way to run a city.

I'm glad you liked Boulder, it's a neat town. They've had the foresight to take a few steps to make the city very pleasant to live in, like the bike paths and the immense amount of protected open space surrounding the town. Unfortunately, the bike paths and the open space have made the town so pleasant to live in that property values have gone sky high, and only the very well-to-do can afford to live there.

thdave

No, never been overseas.

Regarding Boulder, I agree that the bike infrastructure has contributed to solid property values, which Boulderites say is still increasing despite the plunge in real estate values elsewhere. They have been able to keep the traffic down to a manageable level by the creation of many cyclists who use the bike paths as their means of transportation. This has also helped keep the town small--people come downtown all the time to shop. It's a european city in Colorado. Other towns have been shuttered as business has flowed to their outskirts, where Wal Mart set up shop.

It's remarkable what they've done.

bkrownd

Different strokes for different folks. I just wasn't my kind of place in that sense. In my experience it was strictly average since I'd rank it far behind St. Paul, Amherst and Denver, and only ahead of lowly Hilo. There just wasn't anywhere in Boulder that I enjoyed going on my bike.

mikeybikes

Boulder's cool. I'm with DataJunkie though, I prefer Golden. I loved biking there when I went to school there. Since I've transferred, I moved into Denver.

Denver, BTW, and I mean actual Denver, is great for cycling. Sure, not as cool as Boulder, but there's plenty of us here.

I miss Golden though. If it weren't like a 25-30 mile trip to work/school, I'd still be living there.

DataJunkie, which POC suburb you living in? Thornton or something?

DataJunkie

You guessed correctly. Thornton.
There are a few of us here but as a whole the city is not friendly to cycling. Too many high speed arterial streets and unfriendly drivers. I do have a few routes here but they all lead elsewhere (Boulder,Denver,Golden, Superior, unincorporated Adams and Weld, etc.

I enjoy riding in Denver. So many stop signs and traffic signals. Plus, I swear it is not as crowded as Boulder. Especially on the weekend. However, that may be my own perception of reality.

garysol1 

To be fair to Cleveland....While the path thdave is talking about is about 4ft wide it is also somewhere around 20 miles long and ties into the main park system here which offers hundreds of miles of trails and park roads. All of this is within an older metro city area. The City of Cleveland has done an amazing job of creating a beautiful urban park that offers walking, hiking, cycling fishing,...etc.....
No, it is not perfect but it is MUCH nicer then what most other big cities offer.

bkrownd

That's because at any time most of the non-student people in Boulder drove in from somewhere else. The residential areas of East Denver were very quiet in comparison.