Photo Credit: Mackinac Island Tourism Bureau

Since 2018, PeopleForBikes’ City Ratings program has identified, analyzed, and compared the best cities and towns for bicycling in the U.S. and abroad. For 2024, we scored 2,300 cities across the U.S. and nearly 200 cities throughout the U.K, Australia, and Europe.

This year’s City Ratings feature 816 new U.S. cities, including a brand new #1 city for bicycling — Mackinac Island, Michigan.


A small historic island located in Lake Huron off the coast of northern Michigan, Mackinac Island is perhaps best known for one of the main reasons it scored so well in our City Ratings — no motorized vehicles are allowed. The ban was originally enacted in 1898 after residents complained that the arrival of the new “horseless carriages” were dangerous and scared their horses. Today, the ban is still in place, and residents and visitors of the island travel by foot, bike, or horse-drawn carriage.


“The no vehicle aspect is really nice. You don’t have to worry about traffic,” jokes Steph Castelein, who works as the content manager for the island’s tourism bureau. “A lot of people don’t leave the downtown area, but there’s so much to explore. People have been coming back for years and are always finding something new.”


While the island itself is only 3.8 square miles in size, 80% of Mackinac is a state park and is home to more than 70 miles of trails to explore, including an 8.2-mile coastal trail that circumnavigates the perimeter of the island.

Mackinac Island’s lack of vehicular traffic and 19th-century charm have made the small Michigan town a major national tourism destination, with the year-round population of around 600 welcoming nearly 1 million visitors each year. Earlier this year, Mackinac took home the #1 spot on USA Today’s list of the best summer travel destinations in the U.S. for the second year in a row.


While not every city may be fortunate enough to have more than 125 years of car-free streets to its name, there are still valuable lessons to be learned from the small island off the tip of Michigan’s mitten.


“It’s interesting, for those that live here full-time, it’s just the way it is. We don’t have to think about it,” says Castelein. “We ride our bikes to get our groceries home, our kids get to school on bikes — it’s become so normal to use bikes for transportation.”

Creating a culture of biking doesn’t happen overnight, but with the proper dedicated efforts investing in infrastructure and enacting policies that make choosing to go by bike an easy, safe, and accessible option, you’d be surprised how quickly people will leave the car at home and opt for the joys and conveniences of riding a bike. 


Want to support bike infrastructure and policies that can help transform your community into a great place to ride a bike? See how your city scored in this year’s City Ratings and explore our Great Bike Infrastructure Project to find a project that needs help in your backyard.

This Michigan Tourist Destination is the Best Place to Bike in the U.S.

Even at a bike organization, not everyone bikes all the time, especially in the winter. When I started as PeopleForBikes’ director of enterprise partnerships in 2021, I knew part of my role would be helping companies across the country find ways to engage and support more employees in bicycling. Thankfully, PeopleForBikes’ own staff felt like the perfect testing ground for this work. 

In December of 2021, we circulated a survey to better understand existing bike riding habits. Based on those survey results, a new employee benefit was developed, focused on encouraging more time spent on the bicycle. Dubbed “Bike Perks,” the ride encouragement program launched in January 2022.

The idea behind Bike Perks isn’t a new concept. Organizations have incentivized bike riding habits for decades. Historically, these programs focused on reducing car-based commutes for businesses with limited parking capacity. With some of PeopleForBikes staff working in different states, however, parking wasn’t a motivator and we developed our program with new goals in mind. 

Goal 1: Live out our mission to get more people biking more often. 

Goal 2: Encourage investment in the industry we serve.

Using the PeopleForBikes ride-recording and sharing platform, Ride Spot, internal ride challenges were created each month encouraging staff to bike 25 times. Those rides could be of any variety (i.e., exercise, transportation, leisure) and of any distance. Reducing the parameters on what type of rides count toward the monthly challenges not only made the program more inclusive but it also helped increase participation. For those unable to bike, for whatever reason, we offered alternative participation activities like yoga, physical therapy, or walking.

As an additional incentive, PeopleForBikes staff earned $4 for every ride logged using Ride Spot (up to $100/month). Staff could also double that incentive by submitting bike industry purchase receipts up to the amount they earned from riding — meaning an employee taking full advantage of the program could earn $2,400/year. Soon, staff were reaching for their bikes first when going to work out or running to the grocery store.

With a full year of Bike Perks behind us, we’re happy to report how the program has fared thus far. PeopleForBikes’ 2022 Bike Perks by the numbers:


7 staff members completed 100% of the 2022 challenges (a minimum of 300 trips)

83% of EOY survey respondents said the program changed their bike riding habits

At a glance, it would be easy to say the cash benefit is what motivated staff to participate in the program, and for a lot of people, it definitely played a role. However, we found there were many low and no-cost measures that also contributed to the success of the Bike Perks program. Here are a few key takeaways: 

Senior leadership should show support, promote, and participate in the program. Devoting a Slack channel to sharing ride stories can also help engage employees. 

Having a dedicated point person to answer questions and/or offer low-cost prizes can help keep staff informed and involved. 

Keep the challenges fun and topical. It’s important to change challenge parameters to fit the season.

If a formal ride encouragement program is something that would benefit your organization, you’re in luck! PeopleForBikes is ready to provide the software and programming to launch Bike Perks at your organization at no charge. Schedule a demo today to see how the program can improve the bike culture within your team. 

How PeopleForBikes Encourages Staff to Ride More

PeopleForBikes, a national bicycling advocacy organization, and the U.S. bicycle industry’s trade association announced its latest round of community grants totaling $92,000. The 11 projects funded in 2022 will support bicycle infrastructure and advocacy projects across the U.S. 

PeopleForBikes’ Industry Community Grants Program is funded through the Employee Pro Purchase program, which collects donations from individuals who work in the bike industry and take advantage of pro-pricing discounts on new bikes and bicycling equipment. Cannondale and Trek currently participate. 

Since 1999, the PeopleForBikes Industry Community Grants Program has funded more than 400 projects in all 50 states totaling more than $3.6 million in direct funds. The total funding this year represents more than 1,000 individuals in the bike industry who gave back to grow bicycling through an employee pro purchase. 

“Seeing the industry come together to support community grants big and small continues to be incredibly inspiring,” said Jenn Dice, president and CEO of PeopleForBikes. “We thank the companies and thousands of employees that contribute to this important program. These projects will make a tangible difference in 11 communities while aiding our larger mission of getting more people on bikes more often and making biking better for everyone.” 

The Center of Southwest Culture
Albuquerque, NM 

This grant will support Story Riders, a program at The Center of Southwest Culture, Inc. that empowers Indigenous and Latino youth to reconnect with their natural and cultural heritage, all while providing practical training in bicycle safety, maintenance, and guided cycling experiences. Each student will take home the bike they work on and a new helmet. 

BikeHouston will use the funding to launch Gear Shifters, an advocacy training program for BikeHouston staff and volunteers. Gear Shifters will expand and enhance advocacy efforts by representing the needs of people who ride bikes at public meetings, as well as in conversations with elected officials, community groups, and developers.

Bike Works Seattle’s mission is to promote the bicycle as a vehicle for change and a tool for building resilient communities. This grant will be used for general operating support, more than 80% of which will go directly to youth, adult, community, and environmental cycling programs and services. 

Trails Utah will use this grant to launch a pilot project to modify existing trails with the specific goal of accommodating adaptive mountain bikers. Funds will be used to purchase equipment and signage, as well as pay for physical trail work by the Utah Conservation Corps.

Trailnet works to foster healthy, active, and vibrant communities where walking, bicycling, and the use of public transit is a way of life. Funding will help accelerate the installation of safer mobility networks in St. Louis by focusing on high-crash corridors, which are predominantly in Black and underserved communities. 

The Red Line Parkway Initiative empowers diverse communities to enjoy, develop, and enhance the Red Line Trail and Parkway, a 32-mile, multimodal rails-with-trails project. Grant funds will support a portion of 2023 engagement activities with an emphasis on social equity and physical and mental health. 

Girls in Gear teaches life skills through bike skills to help young female riders build confidence on and off their bikes. Funding will be used for coach training and support, as well as program supplies, to ensure every girl has the chance to safely and confidently bike through life.

Community Action Duluth’s BikePlus program provides those recently released from incarceration with a free bicycle, helmet, and bike lock. This grant will allow Community Action Duluth to continue its efforts and reach more people in need. 

This grant will fund bikepacking trips for those in Deaf community in the Mid-Atlantic region, offering environmental education, leadership training, and essential bicycle maintenance. Funds will also be used to provide a day trip for groups to a gravel or mountain biking trail, allowing for local community connections.

With this grant, Salem Bike Vision (SBV) will host three community rides in 2023, working to educate the public about what makes for effective bike infrastructure and helping identify areas where safety is lacking. The organization will also engage local decision-makers around opportunities to use the city’s recently passed bond for safe bike infrastructure.

Dunn Gardens will use funding to purchase and install two bike racks, which will allow for more car-free commuting and send a welcoming message to the many visitors in the neighborhood who rely on bicycles for transportation. 

PeopleForBikes Announces 2022 Industry Community Grant Recipients

Like many towns across the U.S., a change in the way we do business has led to a loss of jobs, local economies and even pride. Places that once relied on logging or mining are now left without industry and struggling to maintain once-thriving population centers, all while also coming to terms with the need for a more climate-resilient economy. The Lost Sierra region of Northern California — which includes communities in California’s Plumas, Sierra, Butte and Lassen Counties — is no different.

The Sierra Buttes Trail Stewardship (SBTS), a nonprofit that builds and maintains multi-use trails in the region, wants to rethink how its towns do business. The organization developed a Trails Master Plan for Connected Communities, funded by the Sierra Nevada Conservancy, which puts forth a vision for a recreation-focused lifestyle through community investment, shared stewardship, economic opportunity and new local jobs. 

The project includes building a new 600-plus-mile trail system, dubbed the “Lost Sierra Route,” which will ultimately connect 15 mountain towns that span from Truckee northward to Westwood, near where the Sierra Nevada end and the Cascade Range begins. The landscape is nothing short of spectacular and once completed, is sure to become a destination for outdoor adventurists near and far — and a home for all of the business they tend to bring.

Mountain bikers riding from the town of Quincy pose on Mt. Hough before descending into Taylorsville below for an overnight stay. (Photo credit: Patrick Cavender)

“We’re not trying to replace the logging or mining industry. We still need industry, but we feel like recreation can complement things,” said Greg Williams, executive director of the Sierra Buttes Trail Stewardship. “We create jobs, opportunities, apprenticeships and trainings — we’re trying to retain working families here and retain talent.”

With wildfires increasing every year, the project also seeks to strike a balance between fuel management, recreation, healthy watersheds and public education. Williams is Northern Sierra Miwok and telling the story of his Indigenous ancestors, as well as others like the Washoe and Maidu, is another important part of the equation, not only to honor the original stewards of the land but also to draw inspiration from the less-extractive ways they continue to interact with it. 

A longtime bicyclist and former shop owner, Williams founded SBTS in 2003 after a big winter left a lot of trees down and trails damaged. With the Forest Service losing a good deal of its funding, Williams and a group of volunteers took the initiative to take care of the trails. Since then, the organization’s employees and volunteers have built more than 120 miles of trail, maintained more than 1,479 miles and collectively contributed well over 100,000 hours of labor to the surrounding National Forest lands. There are currently 66 full-time and seasonal employees, 24 of which are high school students from throughout the region. 

Employees and volunteers have worked on everything from garden-variety singletrack to wilderness portions of the Pacific Crest Trail to ADA-compliant paths to multi-use flow trails. The Connected Communities Project, which is slated for a summer 2030 completion date, will include the creation and maintenance of multi-purpose trails that allow for all dirt trail travelers, including eMTB and traditional mountain bikes, hikers and trail runners, equestrians, hunters, fishermen and, of course, wildlife. When possible, the trails will be ADA accessible.

“We're not saying no to any trail user that can fit on a trail,” said Williams. “It’s about inclusion, equity, diversity and access — not just in people but how they recreate.”

The trail will include mainstreet connections in the 15 mountain communities it serves, as well as traverse the headwaters of the Yuba and Feather Rivers, critical watersheds that supply more than 65% of California’s drinking water. The master plan also includes designated recreation zones, or areas that are on Forest Service land close to commercial centers. These areas will provide close access to trails for locals, helping them avoid having to drive to trailheads, as well as convenient downtown parking for visitors, which will help generate business.

The recreation zones were the result of community feedback from some 16 town hall meetings, 100 virtual meetings and in-person park sessions, complete with big dry-erase boards and maps where residents could draw in their dream plans. SBTS also opened up an online public survey and solicited takers using kiosks and booklets strategically placed at gas stations and businesses. All in all, the nonprofit got almost 1,200 people throughout the region to take the survey and some 800 took the time to draw on the maps to showcase their vision. 

It was through that public process that SBTS was able to gain support from other organizations, including the Forest Service, individual cities, counties and members of Congress. A strong partnership with the Forest Service is particularly important, as all of the proposed trails are susceptible to an environmental review. Importantly, SBTS is sure to always contract with local folks — whether that be biologists, hydrologists, archeologists or trail builders — in order to support the local economy and help build investment in the network.

Kelly Tan of Taylorsville provides input to members of the Sierra Buttes Trails Stewardship on the Lost Sierra Route. 

“We want this project to be like a recipe book — a national model for how communities can engage with land managers,” said Williams. “At every step of the way, we're documenting the pitfalls we’ve experienced and some of the really great things we did, and we'll be sharing throughout the nation how we did it. Hopefully, we can save people some grief and also inspire them to take it to another level.”

As part of that commitment to being open and transparent about the project, Williams is scheduled to speak at PeopleForBikes’ Electric Mountain Bike Summit on September 15, 2022, in Olympic Valley, California. For Williams and SBTS, allowing eMTBs on the trail system is an important part of keeping it inclusive and accessible to everyone. Like many things pertaining to good trail use, education is key and that’s why good signage, maps and informational kiosks are a key component of the Connected Communities master plan. Industry partners, shop owners and land managers all also have a role to play in making sure e-bikes are used responsibly.

“We want people to be able to ride e-bikes up here and we’ve been working with the National Forest and our industry partners to get bikes up here and take land managers out,” said Williams. “We want to give them an experience riding so as they’re making decisions, they have a good understanding of what an e-bike is.”

The Connected Communities project has a long list of industry partners, including Shimano, Santa Cruz Bicycles and Fox, but SBTS always welcomes more support. While the project has received the green light and secured some $2.6 million in grant funding to date, it will require an estimated $40 million total over the next eight years. For a team that’s committed to building trails — and doing so in a way that’s low-maintenance and won’t require a lot of additional money down the road — fundraising, while necessary, can be exhausting. For a volunteer-driven nonprofit, that time is better spent on outreach, education and trail building.

“To bring an economy to towns that desperately need it, $40 million isn’t that much,” said Williams. “Especially when you consider all of our programs, how many people we reach and the jobs and opportunities we create.”

It’s that impact that’s gotten most folks in the region on board. Pushback, in general, has been minimal and tends to dissipate once people realize the ways a recreation-based economy can help keep grocery stores and restaurants open, as well as motivate future generations to stay in place. After all, hikers and bikers aren’t the worst sorts of visitors, having an innate desire to protect the places where they play. Although there are sure to be some pressure points, the ultimate goal is a region with diversified recreation opportunities that connect communities and provide economic stability. A place where all people, especially youth, can learn about the environment and where climate resiliency is top of mind. 

“What we’re trying to create is multigenerational pride and a workplace for people to be able to come back to and raise their kids, and this is our chance, through recreation,” said Williams. “I’m confident that Connected Communities will be built in such a way that it’s going to change people’s lives — this will last, generation after generation.”

AUSTIN, TEXAS (March 3, 2021) — On July 14, 2020, Talib Abdullahi set out to educate a few friends about Black history in Austin with a bike ride around the city. When he first shared his idea for the ride among a few friends on Instagram, Abdullahi never imagined that eventually more than 400 riders would show up for the first ever Black History Bike Ride (BHBR). 

That was the first and only in-person BHBR due to COVID-19, but the buzz around the ride left people throughout Austin hungry for more ways to connect with important events and lessons from the past through biking. In response, Abdullahi and Black History Bike Ride created a website and a self-guided version of the bike tour. The OG Route is clearly mapped with tidbits of information at every stop, including links to dive deeper into the city’s Black history. With the self-guided ride, people visiting or living in Austin can now bike the route on their own time and in a COVID-safe way.

“Local history isn’t really discussed in elementary or middle schools. I created the ride to give people the tools to learn the history themselves and to understand their own city a little better,” said Abdullahi. “My hope is to inspire more people to get out in their own communities and learn about the Black, Latino and Indigenous stories that exist all around them.”

This March, Ride Spot teamed up with Black History Bike Ride to keep the movement in motion with a challenge — if 500 riders complete the route through the Ride Spot app by March 31, BHBR will receive a generous donation from SRAM, a company passionate about improving and expanding the potential of bicycling. SRAM’s donation will be used to improve the route in Austin, as well as help with the expansion and creation of more routes like this in other cities.

“We’re so excited to partner with Talib and the Black History Bike Ride. Not only will the ride help Austinites learn about Black history in their city, it will help support the creation of more historical and educational rides in other cities across the U.S.,” said Ride Spot’s Tobie DePauw. “Rides like this are what Ride Spot is all about.” 

Black History Bike Ride and Ride Spot encourage Austin bicyclists to ride the route by the end of March in order to complete the challenge. It is free to participate, and every completed ride helps get BHBR closer to its 500-rider goal. To participate, download the Ride Spot app, tap “Join” on the Black History Bike Ride Challenge and don’t forget to share the ride with friends and family!

For more details or find additional route information, check out BlackHistoryBikeRide.com.

Join the Challenge to Raise Money for Black History Bike Ride

Cities are dynamic entities. If you look at photos from 100 years ago, most city streets would be unrecognizable. While preserving history is important, places and infrastructure require constant revision and revitalization to accommodate modern populations — working with the old to build the new.

Every December, we like to celebrate the new. We scour reports, public records and, most importantly, solicit submissions from city officials and community members to review the year’s latest bike projects. 

Does your city or town have a bikeway that was completed in 2020? Now is the time to show it off.

It doesn’t matter if your new bikeway is 10 meters or 10 miles long, if it’s critical to your place and doing important work to connect your community’s bike network, we want to hear from you. We’ll choose the top 10 new bikeways based on innovative construction, relevant location and how well they improve access, connectivity and safety. The winners will be featured on the PeopleForBikes website. 

If you’re proud of a new bikeway in your community, please send the following information:

100 words or fewer explaining why the bikeway should be recognized as one of America’s best of 2020, with an emphasis on how it has improved your overall bike network

When (month of 2020) the bikeway was completed

Email address and/or phone number of a contact person to follow up with: preferably the person/organization behind the funding/advocacy of this new bikeway

Please send your submissions to placesforbikes@peopleforbikes.org no later than Monday, December 7.

Call For Submissions: America’s Best New Bikeways of 2020

Topics

Bike Rides

PeopleForBikes at Work on Bike Rides

News

This Michigan Tourist Destination is the Best Place to Bike in the U.S.

How PeopleForBikes Encourages Staff to Ride More

PeopleForBikes Announces 2022 Industry Community Grant Recipients

The Lost Sierra Route

Join the Challenge to Raise Money for Black History Bike Ride

Call For Submissions: America’s Best New Bikeways of 2020