The 20 most bike-friendly cities, new ranking

Interesting that three Nordic capitals (Copenhagen, Oslo and Helsinki) ranked in the top 10.

What do you consider a good deal for half-day or similar rentals when you're using bikes during your travels in Europe?

Here in road- and mountain/gravel-centric Boise, Idaho, bicycle rentals range from $50 to $200 full day depending on type, style, and brand of the bike. Half days are $50 to $150. There are probably twelve shops offering all manner of rentals.

I have seen barge trips where bikes are included whether you ride or not and there are cycling-specific tours where the choice of high performance bikes is wide and expensive. Electric bikes are the rage on some trips.

I should imagine there are walk-up bike rental shops in many larger cities and I saw e-bikes were available in Scotland.

If you are a serious cyclist, At some point it’s going to be cheaper (and way more fun) to pay to fly your own bike along.

• COPENHAGEN, DENMARK
  • AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS
    
  • PORTLAND, OREGON
    
  • BOULDER, COLORADO
  • MONTREAL, CANADA
  • TOKYO, JAPAN
  • RIO DE JANIERO,BRAZIL
    
  • STRASBOURG, FRANCE
    
  • BARCELONA, SPAIN
    
  • BUDAPEST, HUNGARY
  • AUSTIN, TEXAS
    
  • PARIS, FRANCE
    
  • SEVILLE, SPAIN
    
  • DUBLIN, IRELAND
  • BERLIN, GERMANY

These are top 15 of the World’s Most Bike-Friendly Cities.

In Vienna (#9 on this list), bikes are free, so I consider that a good deal - https://www.citybikewien.at/en/

I have never understood why a bike rental is often higher than a car rental. There has to be enormous profit in bicycle rentals. So now, we just put the bike in the suitcase and check it. It is a bit of pain dragging around a 40lb suitcase but at least it has rollers.

We enjoyed two weeks of bike touring in northeastern Germany doing a self-guided but luggage transfer supported tour. We were happy that we rented touring bikes and didn't bring our road bikes with 23 mm/100 psi tires. Our rentals had more robust touring tires and survived two weeks of touring with no flats.

We road on a multitude of surfaces ranging from dirt or gravel farm roads and cobblestone roads to asphalt pavements. What turned out to be the most brutal was not the cobblestones but WW2 era pre-cast concrete plank roadways with jarring bumps at every joint.
http://bicyclegermany.com/path_conditions.html

Cobblestone or Kopfsteinpflaster: Cobblestone is another experience
that I would rather have in an automobile rather than on a bicycle. In
the former East Germany, we came upon about 10 kilometers (6.2 miles)
of a cobble road. During the DDR times, they were proud of the nearly
full employment situation in their economy. Construction workers were
asked to build this road. Cobble roads are made of rocks, or in this
case granite blocks chiseled into uniform sizes and set in a sand base
by workers on hands and knees.

Plattenweg: (a path made from Platten) is another instance of using
less than ideal material for a bicycle path. OK, I understand that
these paths were originally built for farm equipment or military
vehicles and was not built for bicycles. However, they are not
uncommon in the former East Germany. A "Platten" is a concrete plate
with two or four indentations for handles. They vary in size but
typically are about 3 feet wide and 6 feet long. To build a road, they
are laid side by side, 3-foot section after 3-foot section, until the
road is finished. Each joint is designed to loosen a filling in your
teeth and there are joints every 3 feet, don'tchaknow (this is a term
I picked up living in Montana).... The dirt path alongside is
smoother than the cement Platten.

These are all very interesting comments!

I'm impressed that Vienna's system is free -- similar systems in places like Lyon and Berkeley work well but have charges (which escalate to encourage returning bikes promptly)
I wish first-time poster trevolin had told us where that list is from, so we could speculate on how Austin, TX managed to make it on the list. It reminds me that Salt Lake City and San Antonio and other mid-American victims of car culture have the nerve to call themselves walking - friendly. Compared to their own no-sidewalks-at-all suburbs, maybe so, but compared to any real city that was built BC (before cars) those places are pedestrian-hostile.