Sometimes, no amount of bike helmets can make you feel safe biking in the city, even if you’re an experienced bicyclist. Luckily, cities around the Bay Area have pulled out all the stops to make cyclists feel safe on the commute around town. These bike-friendly cities in the region have made real efforts to widen bike lanes, increase signage, and do everything they can to make cycling enjoyable (even preferable to driving). 

San Francisco

Designated bike lanes in San Francisco

According to NBC Bay Area, San Francisco earned a silver medal for being the second most bike-friendly city in the country. The honor came from a ranking by Bicycling that examined dozens of U.S. cities to identify the 50 towns most friendly and convenient for bikers. The study took numerous factors into account, including the number of bike-friendly bars and miles of bike lanes. According to that study, San Francisco has gone to great lengths in recent years to add an impressive number of “new and high quality cycling facilities, and has seen a resulting surge in ridership.”

Since 2015, San Francisco has also added more than 800 new bike racks around the city. And if you don’t have your own bike, you’re probably just a few blocks from a bikeshare station where you can rent one. 

Davis

Bikes locked up at UC Davis

Bike Score named Davis the second most bike-friendly city in 2015, according to a Grist report. To compile the ranking, Bike Score analyzed several factors, including how hilly the cities are, rates of bike-commuting, and number of bike lanes. With its proximity to a major city like Sacramento and the fact that it’s home to University of California, Davis, it’s fitting that Davis has been recognized as such a bike-friendly town.

Speaking of UC Davis, the university has received its own distinctions for being friendly to bicyclists. According to the school, UC Davis was named a Platinum Bicycle Friendly University by the League of American Bicyclists in 2017, for the second time. 

Palo Alto

Umbrella Bike Lock up in Palo Alto / Photo by Intheknow214 / CC BY-SA

In the eyes of the League of American Bicyclists, Palo Alto is the gold standard among cities pursuing bike-friendliness, according to Patch. Otherwise, why would the city have earned a gold ranking from the organization? 

Palo Alto has much to be proud of, including green bike lanes, contraflow bike lanes, plenty of share-the-road signage and markings, clear pavement markings for bikers, signs to help bikers find shortcuts, and a lot more. On any given morning, you’ll see tech employees biking to their startup jobs, college kids biking to class at Stanford University, and high school students biking to Henry M. Gunn or Palo Alto high schools. There are a lot of bikers sharing the road but, luckily, there are plenty of bike lanes to go around. 

Mountain View

Google bikes in Mountain View, CA / Shutterstock

Maybe Mountain View residents got inspired by those colorful Google bikes, which locals liked so much that they began mysteriously disappearing from the company’s headquarters. Google provided the bikes for employees to go between buildings, grab lunch downtown, and make it to conferences on time without having to rev up their car engines. 

Since 2004, Mountain View had held a bronze-level ranking from the League of American Bicyclists, but that medal got upgraded to a silver in 2012, according to the city.