Best cycling cities of 2019

Utrecht (Netherlands), Munster (Germany) and Antwerp (Belgium) have been chosen as the best cities for cycling by cycling insurance company Coya. 

The global study looked at bike friendliness of 90 cities. Criteria involved road quality, road safety, and bicycle theft, while they even looked at which cities are encouraging cycling, the amount of bikesharing and the weather conditions.

These cities made it to the top 5, and their strengths explain why. 

1. Utrecht (Netherlands). As a country known for cycling, it should not surprise that this Dutch city scores high on cycling infrastructure and has a high cycling usage (51%).  
2. Munster (Germany). The small German city with a cycling rate of almost 40%, has an extremely low score of cycling fatalities, of 0.03/100,000 cyclists. In addition, the city scores high in theft prevention. 
3. Antwerp (Belgium). Although the city only has a cycling rate of nearly 30%, it has one of the highest amounts of cycling shops per cyclists, and one of the highest scores on bikesharing, both considering stations and bikes. 
4. Copenhagen (Denmark). With the same cycling rate as Antwerp, Copenhagen has a way lower number of cyclist accidents (218.44 per 100,000 cyclists compared to 1,165.81 in Antwerp), yet the city scores well on cycling infrastructure and cycling shops as well.
5. Amsterdam (Netherlands). As a larger city than Utrecht, Amsterdam still made it to the top 5 of cycling paradises. The city scores especially high on Investments & Quality of infrastructure score (98.87%), and on safety in terms of theft.

Although the study involved only 90 of the world’s cities, it is interesting to take a closer look at the following cities on the list as well. The remainder of the top 20 exists merely out of European cities, with Auckland (New Zealand), Hangzhou (China) and Montreal (Canada) as the three non-European exceptions. 

In addition, Germany has the most cycling friendly cities in the top 20 with 7 cities in total (and 5 more in the top 30) followed by the Netherlands (2) and France (2). The first Australian city, Melbourne, comes on 21st place, and San Francisco is the friendliest cycling city out of the US (39th), while Santiago de Chile is the most Latin American friendly cycling city at the 58th position. 

Considering opting for bikes or shared bikes in your mobility management? Take a look at which city might be most suited for their deployment, and which factors you should take into account, such as the high or low presence of bikesharing systems, and/or the high or low score on road safety and bike theft.