8 cities that you absolutely must explore by bike, at least once

If you are thinking of achieving Sweden, and maybe adding a third destination to the capital Stockholm or maybe Gothenburg, the European capital of nostalgia, you have more options. You can visit Östersund and hunt for its sea monster, or perhaps lean towards a destination closer to Italy, such as Malmo, which is located in the southernmost part of the Scandinavian country and is Sweden’s third largest city by population.

An industrial and multi-ethnic city with a thousand faces, you can find Rosengård, the ghetto of the young Zlatan Ibrahimović, and you can easily get around it by bike. Further, if you pass the bridge over the Öresund Strait approximately sixteen km from Malmö, you will see a beautiful skyscraper almost two hundred meters high (Turning Torso) and you will reach Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark.

Here you can experience the thrill of sleeping on an old coal crane or look for wooden trolls by Danish artist Thomas Dambo. You can do it all by bike, as both Malmö and Copenhagen are on the list of The 8 best cities in the world for cycling according to Luko Global Bicycle Cities Index 2022. Malmö has over 500 kilometers of cycle paths, Copenhagen around 350.

Data processed by the company Bow take into account multiple variables – from the weather to the percentage of bicycle use, the average rate of theft or accidents involving cyclists, the length and quality of bike lanes and more – and however, they say that the best city in the world for cycling is Utrecht in Holland city Swan Marco van Basten, from the cathedral with a tower over 110 meters high, from which it is said – in good weather – you can see Amsterdam. Which is fifth in the list of cities to explore by bike, with around 515 km of scenic routes between the canals. The Dutch seem to make 40% of their journeys by bike, and Amsterdam has more bikes (881,000) than residents (780,000).

But also a German city Munsterin Westphalia or the Belgian capital of Flanders, Antwerp, the most populous municipality in the country, are great destinations for traveling on two wheels. Just like the Swiss capital Bern AND Hangzhou, in China. In 2008, the government invested over 180 million yuan here, and by early 2013, the bike-sharing system was the largest in the world. Besides, of course, being the most sustainable and greenest alternative to motorized transport. Why pollute?

Below is the complete ranking of the best cities in the world for cycling (on a scale of 1 to 100):

1. Utrecht – Holland (77.84)
2. Münster – Germany (65.93)
3. Antwerp – Belgium (60.51)
4. Copenhagen – Denmark (60.46)
5. Amsterdam – Netherlands (60.24)
6. Malm̦ РSweden (55.88)
7. Hangzhou – China (52.55)
8. Bern – Switzerland (48.76)