Bike Score Rates The Best Biking Cities In North America [FastCompany]

The new service from the folks who brought you Walk Score quantifies how easy it is to bike in cities across the U.S. and Canada. The highest-rated city might surprise you, especially if you can’t picture biking in the snow.

U.S. cities are not known for their bikeability, especially by European standards. However, things have been slowly improving over the last few years, as new infrastructure (and bike-sharing schemes) are added, and the safety-in-numbers effect encourages new cyclists to the road. Last year, the number of protected bike lanes almost doubled, with a similar jump expected in 2013.

Still, there’s a lot of variability. While cities like Chicago and Memphis are investing heavily in cycling amenities, others are still dominated by cars and trucks. And, even within cities, there are large divergences--for example, between the bikeability of areas designated in city centers and more dangerous outer limits.

The aim of Bike Score is to help people to get a sense of how easy a neighborhood is for cycling. The biking companion to the popular Walk Score (which rates walkability), the service recently expanded to 25 U.S. cities, plus another 11 in Canada...

Read on at FastCompany