CrankyOne

Sad, but very true.

JCNeumann

I have to say New York for the sheer entertainment value. Plus, people are very used to bikes.

You need to have your head on a swivel, but that is true in the 'burbs as well. Probably more so!

spare_wheel

I hate that phrase with a passion.

zephyr

The past 15 years, I have been living in Orange County, CA about 50 miles south of downtown Los Angeles. I have bike commuted almost every work day year round during this time. My most direct round trip commute is about 13 miles / 21 km. Quite often I take a longer route home resulting in a 20 mi / 33 km round trip. Most of the main cross town streets in my area have good bike lanes, and make bike commuting very feasible. I rarely have any problems relating to motor vehicles on my commutes. I leave home in the dark at 5:30 am so there are few cars on the road at that time. I also leave work for the trip home by 3 pm, which also means the car traffic is relatively light.

Other places I have ridden for transportation / commute purposes are:

East Bay area in Northern California (Walnut Creek, Concord, San Ramon). Most of the year, good weather conditions for bike commuting and a decent selection of routes to get from A to Z. It takes some planning to find a good route to some locations, because some streets are better for bike riders than others.

Tucson AZ. Others in previous posts mentioned the Old Pueblo. My mother lives there and I visit there 4 times a year, and always bring along the bike. I have explored the entire Tucson area using the vast grid of city streets and separate MUP / bike path routes. Tucson publishes an excellent bicycle route map of the area, and it is available free at many locations around the city and on the web. From October through April, and excellent place for daily bike commuting and bike transportation riding. A bit too hot for me from May-Sept during the daylight hours, but can be fine if you pedal around at 4 to 7 am.

In the 1970s I was a young Army guy stationed in Germany. I spent a couple of years in Berlin, at McNair Barracks in the Lichterfelde district (southwest corner of the city). My wheels in getting around the then divided city were either a city transit pass to take buses, trams or trains, or a 3 speed city bike. Bicycles have been a common way to get around in Berlin for decades, it's not just a recent thing. My girlfriend at the time lived about 8 km from my Army post, in the Schöneberg district of West Berlin. I would often pedal in my Army fatigues and combat boots, back and forth from her place to the Army post, and never had a problem. Berlin became as familiar of a place to me as home, and in the many times I have visited since then, it still feels like home. My last visit was for a month, in 2012. I pedaled a bike everywhere in Berlin metro area, and even though it's been 40 years since I lived there, I don't need a map to get around. And it is a million time better with no ugly wall and and tens or hundreds of thousands of daily bike riders.