Top 50 Cycling Cities In America

Well Bicycling.com released its Top 50 Cycling Cities In America, and Orlando is nowhere to be seen. I was pleased to see that Gainesville made the list, and even the cities of Louisville and Lexington Kentucky, the state that I grew up in before moving to Florida.


One of my coworkers/riding friends asked me, "What do we need to do to get Orlando on this list?" My only response was to say "Do some of the things that the winning cities are apparently doing."

The article sums it up nicely as well. "There are many important things a city can do to gain our consideration for this list: segregated bike lanes, municipal bike racks and bike boulevards, to name a few. If you have those things in your town, cyclists probably have the ear of the local government, another key factor. To make our Top 50, a city must also support a vibrant and diverse bike culture, and it must have smart, savvy bike shops."

Maybe the best thing to take away from this for our city, or any other, is dissecting this explanation to determine where we fall short. The big red flag for Orlando is that we don't have many/any of the elaborate facilities, and since we don't, maybe we need to "get the ear of our local government".