alt Hacker NewsCopenhagenize Index 2025: The Global Ranking of Bicycle-Friendly Cities
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Not Just Bikes, the internet famous pro-bike infrastructure enthusiast, voiced their critique on this list a few days ago: https://social.notjustbikes.com/@notjustbikes/11560519028224...
The note about Copenhagenize being a consulting firm probably explains why the list is so full of weird and arbitrary choices.
At least their method is somewhat open (though I can't find the raw data they used/compensation factors/calculations): https://copenhagenizeindex.eu/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/COP...
Things like "usage of cargo bikes", "percentage of women on bikes", "presence of NGOs", "media tone" all make for rather arbitrary outliers depending on how much they weigh in the final score.
I always have a laugh when I see Copenhagen brag about its cycling infrastructure (e.g. Scandinavian Airlines declaring it bike-mecca in their flyers). I am very sorry, but it really doesn't come even close to Amsterdam, or most other Dutch cities really. There are a tonne of places where high-volume car traffic still intersects with low-speed bicycle traffic in Copenhagen, a lot of high-speed car roads with painted on lines, instead of actually separated infrastructure.
Also, the Netherlands is in its entirety covered in separated infrastructure optimized over decades. Just take a look at how anemic Denmark's infrastructure is outside the cities (https://www.opencyclemap.org/).
Ranking Bordeaux and Nantes next to Amsterdam is nonsense.
Amsterdam is miles ahead in terms of infrastructure. This ranking dilutes the most important thing to get these results : good bike lancés everywhere with no discontinuity.
Disclaimer : I've built villes.plus, an open source automated evaluation of bike lanes. 100 points, compute itineraries in "secure" mode with Brouter between these points, count the % of secured km -> score.
Amsterdam tops at 8/10. Bordeaux is at 3/10, Nantes 2/10.
Bicycling is part of the mobility culture of Montreal, but whether Montreal is actually friendly to bicyclists is open to heated debate.
Cars dominate the topology.
One reason for Utrecht scoring high: it has the largest bicycle parking lot of the world: https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2024/08/21/happy-annivers...
Why the Copenhagenize Index when Copenhagen is not particularly bike friendly by Dutch standards?
Of course it helps if the city, and country in general, is completely flat. Cities in Norway or Nepal have mother nature against all form of manual locomotion.
The biggest hurdle to biking for me is parking safely. Unless I can park it behind locked doors I have an anxious feeling that it may not be still there when I return. This is no problem when bicycling to work, but for arbitrary errands it is. A good lock helps of course, but it still feels like a gamble.
It is currently -1 to -3 in Montreal and -2 to -7 in Quebec (city). So yes folks literally freezing. It will remain so (down to -35) for the next 4 months.
I'm not surprised to see Utrecht in the first place, but quite a bit surprised to see the other Dutch cities so low. No offense, but Rotterdam or The Heague is 100x better than Paris from safety and convenience point of view. I'm curious why is the ranking like this.
I went to Copenhagen this summer. I was quite disappointed in the bicycle infrastructure, I felt like it was on par with what we have in Stockholm. Rented bikes and biked around for two days. It was nice!
Not sure how this index is being calculated (site breaks a lot), but my general feeling was that Denmark is just better at marketing than actual infrastructure when comparing to Stockholm at least
You better learn how to drive bicycle while sleeping because you are not renting or buying any housing in any of these cities.
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Ooops.
great website, very helpful for traveling cyclists
Paris being 5th when biking there is pure chaos compared to many Asian cities makes the ranking look capricious. Paris's City hall is definitely pro bike and a lot of money and effort was poured into infrastructure, but that dosn't suddenly makes it safe or largely adopted.
More generally, infrastructure isn't everything. Tokyo small streets with absolutely no markings can be way safer and bike friendlier than a bright lane in the middle of constant car traffic.
I'll note the company doing the ranking is based on Paris, so familiarity might hide many of the flaws.