Amsterdam is miles ahead in terms of infrastructure. This ranking dilutes the most important thing to get these results : good bike lancés everywhere with no discontinuity.
Disclaimer : I've built villes.plus, an open source automated evaluation of bike lanes. 100 points, compute itineraries in "secure" mode with Brouter between these points, count the % of secured km -> score.
Amsterdam tops at 8/10. Bordeaux is at 3/10, Nantes 2/10.
Dutch urbanists have found that bike lanes are very important when streets used by cars are unaltered. Once you implement a lot of traffic calming features and cars never reach 30kph comfortably, bike lanes aren't that important and then streets can be shared across all users.
Of course it is. See % of safe km as a minimal condition, not as perfection.
Note that bike lane ! = safe km. You're right. There are bad bike lanes and good peaceful streets. See other comment for algorithm.
20 km/h streets are counted.
Amsterdammers prefer to think of themselves as kilometers ahead. ;)
Feel free to suggest a better algorithm ! It's version 2, issues already discuss missing important OSM tags.
Also, the Netherlands is in its entirety covered in separated infrastructure optimized over decades. Just take a look at how anemic Denmark's infrastructure is outside the cities (https://www.opencyclemap.org/).
The note about Copenhagenize being a consulting firm probably explains why the list is so full of weird and arbitrary choices.
At least their method is somewhat open (though I can't find the raw data they used/compensation factors/calculations): https://copenhagenizeindex.eu/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/COP...
Things like "usage of cargo bikes", "percentage of women on bikes", "presence of NGOs", "media tone" all make for rather arbitrary outliers depending on how much they weigh in the final score.
More generally, infrastructure isn't everything. Tokyo small streets with absolutely no markings can be way safer and bike friendlier than a bright lane in the middle of constant car traffic.
I'll note the company doing the ranking is based on Paris, so familiarity might hide many of the flaws.
I get why you'd feel unsafe, but IMHO it's the exact opposite effect: 99% of the streets don't have a sidewalk or anything specific for pedestrian, and thus are pedestrian first.
Small kids, dogs, cats, elderlies will be walking in the middle of the street. As a result cars drive way slower than they'd do in Paris and they need to be way more alert to what's happening. Every small street is basically the same as the pedestrian zone in the middle of Paris.
"Usage and Reach" is ranked better for Paris than Amsterdam? But in Amsterdam I can safely and efficiently bicycle from anywhere to anywhere, including across the rings, to the countryside and even to the sea, with the kids, and no fear. In Paris, I would not dare to venture outside of the touristic city center, and even there I would keep an eye on kids.
Cars dominate the topology.
Also, Quebec is not a city. The city is called "Quebec City" just as how New York and New York City are very different places.
The thing is: after a snow fall, they prioritize the bike roads/lanes before taking care of the roads used by cars.
When I was living in Switzerland, I kept a set of spare wheels with studded tires for those days with risk of ice. Riding on packed snow is perfectly fine on regular tires and ice is not dangerous when you have studded tires.
That's proof that there's either a lot of progress to be made, or the local culture just isn't as tolerant to the cold.
Cycling around -10 works just fine if the roads have been taken care of (which, in your example, doesn't seem to be case, as apparently they're covered in ice).
With decent infrastructure, the difference between cycling 10 degrees above and 10 degrees below freezing is a matter of outfit.
Granted in a bona fide blizzard like today, i am choosing the bus instead. But this is the biggest snowfall in several years, not exactly a frequent problem.
That's a very {Plateau,reddit,no-kids}-centric view.
But if your point is that North American cities all tend to have the same downtown/suburban contrasts, you are quite right.
People who live $Downtown usually have walkable neighbourhoods and perhaps even access to underground transit. People who live outside the centre of the city mostly end up depending on a private vehicle.
Bicycles are part of the mobility culture in Montreal. But Car Cancer has the same effect everywhere.
Oslo is #18 on that list, not too shabby. Kathmandu is in a valley.
People act like I'm some kind of freak when I arrive at work on my bike in the middle of the winter. But I remind them that there are people who work all day outdoors in places like Alaska and Canada, and 20 minutes on a bike doesn't even come close.
On the way said "only three more mountains to go till we're home"! I asked "WTF?" and he explained that's what they call the bridges over the canals.
This is one of the intersections we went through right after one of the mountains, showing how much the local culture affects the traffic safety and bicycle friendliness as much as the geography:
Austin TX plants random, worn out, unpainted, leftover, camouflaged concrete shapes that serve no discernible positive purpose in the middle of city streets frequented by motorcycles, pedestrians, cyclists, scooters, and skaters. That's how much of a shit they give about anyone not in a truck or a rented Slingshot.
I keep meaning to cycle DC and Portland.
Enforcing the laws against bike thieves would be 100x more effective in promoting biking than building anything.
There are neighborhoods in cities like Amsterdam where bicycle theft is pretty much expected to happen no matter how many locks you buy, but in smaller towns there's barely a need to lock your bike at all during the day.
Not sure how this index is being calculated (site breaks a lot), but my general feeling was that Denmark is just better at marketing than actual infrastructure when comparing to Stockholm at least
Completely agree with you, I've traveled with my bike to many cities in Europe, the Netherlands in general has a fantastic bike infrastructure, not even sure why it's called "Copenhagenize" since I go to Copenhagen quite often and compared to Dutch's bike infrastructure it's still not on par to it. It's definitely great but the Dutch have it ahead.
Ooops.
Says you, I clicked 22 minutes after you posted, and got the WP install page. Like you, I sympathize; no one deserves this on their Saturday.
I clicked again, though, to get a repro and it was back. :shrug:
