Kerstin Oschabnig

How good or well connected is the bicycle infrastructure of the most bicycle friendly cities? Find out yourself and see if you can guess the city name by its bicycle infrastructure.

Graz is known throughout Austria as a university city. With approximately 45,000 students and around 300,000 residents, young academics influence the city and flow of traffic. Bikes are the most favoured form of transport amongst students. They are affordable, convenient and fast. The Bike Citizens app has been available in Graz since 2012 and accompanies hundreds of cyclists each week as they travel around the city. Thanks to the new “Bike Citizens Analytics” GPS data analysis tool, anonymised data can now be evaluated for urban planning purposes.

German cities have plenty in the pipeline over the next few years when it comes to bicycle traffic: inner city bicycle lanes are being built, express lanes such as the RS1 Ruhrschnellweg are facilitating more commuter traffic on bikes and there is a general move towards increasing modal split of cycling. The National Bicycle Traffic Plan (NRVP) in Germany will provide 3.2 million euros until 2020 towards bicycle traffic projects. But which improvements do these measures bring? A bicycle lane where no one rides their bike, missing connections and long waiting times at crossings are only half effective.The newly developed “Bike Citizens Analytics” data analysis tool will assist with bicycle traffic planning in future.

The City of Vienna will provide up to €800 in funding towards cargo bikes from March 2017. If the bikes have an electric motor, the grant increases to a total of up to €1,000. Community cargo bikes will receive even up to 100% subsidisation. More and more cities are recognising the advantages of cargo bikes for private as well as commercial use and are granting subsidies.

Quentin and Henri, 2 road lovers, have seen their lives brutally crushed when the yellow safety vest became mandatory for cyclists and other road users in France on 1st January 2016. That’s how they decided to turn this legislation upside down to reinvent the whole shape and design of this street symbol through street wear collections and reflective jackets.

With the falling temperatures and the sun disappearing early, it's natural to catch oneself looking for excuses to avoid long distances or only leave the flat when necessary. Once personal idleness meets Christmas and its many family dinners, it's accomplished: the couch potato is born.

Follow our co-founder Andreas Stückl and Paul Mayer on their tour through the US. They'll make three stops in 16 days: New York City, Interbike Expo in Las Vegas and the Nacto conference in Seattle. See the US through their eyes. Enjoy your rides - they will do it for sure!

Even in Europe summer has arrived. For those who haven't already decided where to spend their holidays, we have made a selection of the best bike tours in Europe – all of them available in the Bike Citizens App. And the best thing about it? With our flatrate (19.99 Euro) you can download all city packages so that you are perfectly prepared for your adventurous city trip.

Always with these facts and figures! For mathematicians, they belong to everyday life, but how many of us can actually imagine slightly below 2 tonnes of CO2, or 300,000 travelled kilometres? Sometimes we simply lack reference to such statements. Therefore, Bike Citizens has been engaged in different methods over a long period of time for making numbers and comparisons more tangible. The heatmap method of visualisation has emerged as an essential element.

A few months ago we visited the berlin-based designer Antoniya Ivanova in her home-office and talked with her about Berlin as a hub for cycling fashion. Now she has presented her new lable Chance of Rain, specialising in urban cycling apparel, for pre-order on Kickstarter. Honored with „German Design Award 2016“ for „Excellent Product Design“ the collection offers solutions for the fashion-conscious urban cyclist, rain or shine.