Good cycling communities
 

I have been wondering, what are some towns and areas that have an enlightened policy towards the bicycle as a mode of transportation? I would love to move to an area that views our kind as a real benefit and treats us accordingly. Are there any places that say "If we make these roads more convenient for cyclists then they will come"?

i would guess most college towns treat cycling with more respect, and a large percentage of the community (students) use bikes as transportation.

fort collins is a good example, bike lanes everywhere (where you love or hate them)

http://outside.away.com/outside/dest...n-towns-4.html

Good towns for bikes:
Eugene OR & Portland OR

Madison, WI is still way up there in my book ....


msm

Portland Maine, home of the first Biketown.

Portland, Oregon. Named best city to bike in 2001. Def. still one of top 3.

Agreed with Eugene. Bike lanes everywhere, bike paths, tons of bike shops, and even the car drivers watch out for us more than in other cities. I had a friend come down from Coeur D'alene, Idaho, and she said she'd never seen so many bikers before. It scared the crap out of her. :D

Davis, California?

Tucson, AZ . . . 400+ miles of bike lanes; great climate.

Imagine what her reaction would be like in some parts of China!
:D

That's a bit more of a drive from Cour D'Alene than Eugene, Oregon is, though. So I doubt she'll find out any time soon. 8-)

I think Santa Barbara is pretty good. It probably wouldn't win any awards, but the weather is benign, it's a multi-college town, the locals are pretty mellow and there are a lot of cyclists.

Bogota, Colombia has the largest bicycle route of any city. It is known as the ciclovia (cycling way). Every Sunday from 7AM to 2PM, 121 kilometers of road are closed to motor vehicles. Along the route, 1500 volunteers provide bike repairs, directions, and reroute traffic away from the ciclovia. Bogota also has permanent bike routes throughout the city. Even soldiers ride their bikes to work along these bike paths.

Lots of good cycling towns have been mentioned-- I've biked over much of the Left Coast here in the USA and Eugene is my favorite. I'm living in Tacoma, Washington now and there isn't much bike culture here, but it's still a pretty easy town to ride in. I've done some thinking on this subject and here are a couple of factors about bike-friendly towns.

Towns less that 100,000 are easier to ride in. Not that it isn't a blast riding downtown Seattle during drive time, but smaller seems better to me, overall.

Older cities with the traditional square grid are better than new development where huge housing projects and mega shopping complexs are served by 4+ lane roads where cars over 40 mph. Cycling really is tailored to for backstreets, trails, service roads, residental streets-- Here in Tacoma it's possible to take dirt single track though the railway tracks that cut apart the neighborhoods and pop up in totally different section of town. Living on a cul de sac that dumps only on to a traffic filled *commuter freeway* makes it harder to ride.

As stated above-- collage towns seem to be the best. It's a mix of less sprawl, more youth and idealism, more riders? I don't know really know. But I may be bias because I just love collage towns.

Another factor is that in a college town there is the issue of having to find parking. Cycling is so much easier that having to deal with looking for parking. Plus it makes getting from one side of campus to the other side quicker. And if you park on campus it's just another added cost for the parking permit.

Portland is great if you think bike lanes are great. It's hell if you think bike lanes are generally a bad idea. In Portland, cyclists can and do get tickets if they don't use a bike lane. They also face motorists who think that cyclists belong only in bike lanes.

Not to long ago, a cyclist was hit on a road without a bike lane. Just this week, someone in Portland wrote a letter to the editor saying that the cyclist should have been on one of the roads with "bike facilities":


The Ohio Bike Federation has a good site that explains what makes a town "cyclist friendly."

Burlington, VT is good for cycling about 8 months out of the year...then you can transition to X-country skis! I was riding in March and April. There are a fair amount of dedicated bike paths, and plenty of riders. The city seems to have a great policy towards creating different routes to the same points via streets with shared bike lanes...Some of the other towns nearby, however, are more interested in big box stores and four-lane death intersections.

--- Yes, college towns. In my own experience, three California college towns that are bike friendly include the aforementioned Davis, plus Palo Alto, and also Arcata in Humboldt County. All three are bike-friendly college towns.

I second the Santa Barbara Calif area, I lived there for 15 years and can attest to it's excellent cycling paths, roads and climate. BUT to live there is very expensive, a cheap 800 square foot fixer upper in a bad area will cost you about $600,000 and the property taxes are sky high! If your going to be renting expect to pay at least $1500 a month.

Amen to that. There is no doubt that a traditional street grid is best for cyclists and pedestrians. Cul-de-sacs, collector streets, and multi-lane, high speed streamform arterials ("automobile sewers" in Andres Duany's memorable phrase) are inconvenient and unsafe. Ironically, that miserable form of development normally ends up being just as dysfunctional for cars. It increases point to point driving distance, promotes congestion, and leaves everyone irritable and impatient.

Wow, I wish we had that here. Granted Eugene is bigger than the city I live in but we don't have that many bike lanes nor bikers. On my commute the most of the guys I see riding bikes are construction/day workers. If we have bikers I guess they're recreational because it's rare to see a commuter on the road.

Gotta second Fort Collins. A good number of bike shops, easy-to-get-around-on streets, a fair number of actually useful bike paths, and plenty of great riding outside of town too.

Austin, Tx. Probably the largest 'college town' in the country.

The entire metro area is easily accessible and has some nice rolling hills for a good workout. Serious riders have a whole lot of options when you head west a little bit, from long road rides to aggressive downhills.

Great weather means you can ride year-round with little problems. I couldn't recommend it enough.

Cheers

My girlfriend lived in Couer d'Alene for several years. She says it's beautiful country up there..

sorry for tangenting the thread.

Gotta go with Portland on this one. I have rode in many a city, and in the US nothing tops Portland. Only Amsterdam comes close.

Portland still has a long-way to go to become a bike mecca. However, it has motivation to keep improving on it's situation. Many of it's freeways have bike paths next to the road (usually it's own path not just a sholder). The downtown area is overrun with cyclist, so the drivers are used to working with us. There are many bike paths and arteries so you can get about anyplace.

I just wish they would re-pave downtown. My rims are having a hard enough time holding my fat-ass up, let alone dealing with all of thr ruts, and pot-holes.

~n