The Best Cities for Biking in 2026
How-To · Commuter
Something quietly good happened this year. The number of American cities with genuinely rideable bike networks more than doubled, and the biggest city in the country now sits at the top of the list. Here is how to read your own city's score, and how to pick a bike that works as actual transportation.
If you have ever caught yourself thinking your city is simply not a place where people ride, it is worth checking whether that is still true. PeopleForBikes rates more than 3,000 American communities every year on how well their bike networks actually connect people to the places they need to go. This year, 555 cities scored 50 or higher. Last year only 234 did. That is not a rounding error. That is a lot of new protected lanes, calmed streets and finished paths landing at roughly the same time.
And the headline result is one that surprises people who do not live here: Brooklyn is the number one large city for biking in America. Not Portland, not Amsterdam by way of Colorado. Brooklyn. Queens came fourth. So if the plan was to wait until riding felt reasonable where you live, the waiting may already be over.
What the score actually measures
The rating is not a vibe. Every city gets a number from 0 to 100 built on how well its bike network links people to jobs, schools, healthcare, shopping and recreation. In other words it measures whether you can get somewhere useful, not whether there is a nice trail on the edge of town.
The threshold worth remembering is 50. In PeopleForBikes' own words, cities at 50 or above "typically have connected, low stress infrastructure, including slow neighborhood streets, off street bike paths, and protected bike lanes." Connected is the operative word. A single beautiful bike lane that ends at a six lane road does not move a score. A network does.
The 2026 scorecard
Cities are graded within their own size class, which is the fair way to do it. Here are the leaders in each, plus the number everyone should actually look up.
| Size class | Leader | Score | Runners up |
|---|---|---|---|
| Large (over 300,000) | Brooklyn, NY | 70 | Minneapolis 68 · Seattle 66 · Queens 63 · San Francisco 61 |
| Medium (50,000 to 300,000) | Hoboken, NJ | 83 | Rochester Hills, MI 80 · Anchorage, AK 72 |
| Small (under 50,000) | Mackinac Island, MI | 100 | Old Orchard, PA 100 · Crested Butte, CO 100 |
A few things jump out. Hoboken at 83 outscores every large city in the country, which is what happens when a dense, walkable place commits to it. Mackinac Island scoring a perfect 100 is a fun outlier: cars are essentially banned there, so the whole island is the bike network. And Milwaukee at 57 and Detroit at 55 both broke into the top ten this year, Milwaukee after hitting its goal of 50 miles of protected bikeways and Detroit as the roughly 30 mile Joe Louis Greenway keeps filling in.
Look up your own address on the PeopleForBikes City Ratings map before you choose a bike. If your area scores well, a lighter and faster bike makes sense because you will be on calm streets and protected lanes. If it scores low, prioritize wider tires, real brakes and a more upright riding position, because you will be mixing with traffic and rougher pavement more often. The score should change what you buy.
The other half of the story: what people are actually buying
Better places to ride are showing up in the sales data, and not in the way the headlines suggest. The overall American bicycle market was worth $6.6 billion in 2024, down 8 percent from the year before, which is the number that gets reported as bad news. It misses most of what happened.
When PeopleForBikes went looking for the sales conventional counts do not capture, they found roughly 450,000 direct to consumer electric bikes worth about $800 million, plus another 80,000 or so sold person to person. Add it up and about a million electric bikes changed hands in America in 2024, roughly doubling the known size of the market. Their read is blunt and worth quoting: the market "isn't shrinking, it's changing shape, from recreation toward everyday transportation."
The shape of that change is the useful part for anyone shopping:
- The buyer changed. It is moving from enthusiasts toward families, commuters and people running errands.
- Commuting bikes hold their value best. In resale data, commuter oriented models made up 54 percent of sales. People are buying the bikes that do jobs.
- Cargo is one of the fastest growing corners of the market, around $100 million on roughly 38,500 units in 2024. One resale executive noted their strongest long tail cargo models often sell within a day of listing.
For scale on where this goes: in Germany, electric bikes were about 53 percent of all bicycles sold in 2024, roughly 2.05 million of 3.85 million. In America electric bikes were about 7 percent of bicycle sales. That gap is the whole opportunity, and it is closing in the direction of everyday use.
Bikes that hold up as transportation
If the point is replacing car trips rather than weekend loops, the spec that matters most is not top speed. It is whether the bike can carry your life, stop reliably in traffic and go a week without anxiety. These four are in stock now and each solves a different version of that.
- Motor: 750W hub, 1,100W peak
- Range: Up to 60 mi
- Payload: 400 lbs
- Weight: 54 lbs
A 750W hub that peaks at 1,100W, a removable 48V 15Ah pack, and a real 400 lb payload rating. Most commuter bikes tap out around 250 to 300 lbs, so this one carries a passenger, a week of groceries or a load of gear without complaint. Magicycle quotes up to 60 miles and says real world riders see 30 to 45, which is the honest way to state a range figure.
Skip it if you carry your bike anywhere. At 54 lbs it is not going up a walk up, and a torque plus cadence sensor pairing cannot fix stairs.
Get it if: you want the most capability per dollar on this page and the bike lives at ground level.
- Motor: 500W, 50Nm rear hub
- Range: Up to 40 mi
- Top speed: 20 mph
- Safety: UL 2849
The one on this list that is UL 2849 certified, meaning the battery, charger and motor were tested together as a system rather than just shipped in the same box. If the pack charges inside your apartment, that certification is the spec that actually matters. Step through frame, thumb throttle, 20 mph.
Skip it if your commute runs long. Forty miles is the ceiling and a 10.4Ah pack is the smallest here, so a hilly round trip will have you charging more often than you would like.
Get it if: you live in a building, charge indoors, and want the safety question settled before anything else.
- Motor: 750W hub, 95Nm
- Range: Up to 62 mi
- Payload: 440 lbs
- Tires: 26 x 4 in
This is the category the sales data says is growing fastest, and the numbers explain why. 95Nm of torque with a torque sensor means power arrives smoothly even fully loaded, and 440 lbs of rated payload means that if you weigh 180 you still have roughly 260 lbs to play with. Hydraulic discs and 4 inch tires do the rest.
Skip it if you ride solo and unloaded. You would be hauling a cargo frame and fat tires around for capacity you never touch, and a lighter bike would be quicker and cheaper.
Get it if: there is a grocery run, a kid seat or a job site at the other end of the ride.
- Motor: 250W hub, 42Nm
- Range: Up to 75 mi
- Weight: 38.8 lbs
- Drivetrain: Shimano GRX
38.8 lbs with a carbon drop bar, a GRX groupset and a torque sensor, and still the longest quoted range here at up to 75 miles. It gets there by using less motor rather than more battery, which is the efficient way to solve range and the reason it stays light.
Skip it if you need to haul. A 250W motor and 42Nm is the gentlest assist on this page, so loaded hills and heavy cargo are not what it is for.
Get it if: your commute involves stairs, a fourth floor walk up, or lifting the bike onto a train.
Two of those deserve a closing word. The Magicycle CT-1 at $799 carrying 400 lbs is the clearest illustration of the transportation shift on this page: priced like a toy, built like a truck. And the UrbanCross-Ultra at 38.8 lbs exists because the real barrier for a lot of city riders is not range, it is a fourth floor walk up. A bike you cannot lift is a bike you will not ride.
Build a commute you would actually keep
Every Belcopia electric bike ships free and is available with Shop Pay financing.
Shop electric bikes →Frequently Asked Questions
What is a good PeopleForBikes score?
Is Brooklyn really the best big city for biking in America?
Are electric bike sales actually falling?
Does my city's score change which bike I should buy?
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