Norwich named the UK’s most cycle-friendly city
Posted on in Business News , Cycles News
Norwich has triumphed ahead of Newcastle and Belfast to be named the most cycle-friendly city in the UK, scoring high marks for categories like cycle routes, bike sharing schemes and cycle-friendly weather conditions.
Around 2,000 adults were surveyed as part of Saga's Cycling Cities campaign to determine the most cycle-friendly cities in the UK.
Newcastle came second with the largest number of sharing scheme options followed by Belfast, Nottingham and Glasgow, which also scored highly across these categories. In other locations, cities such as Edinburgh received praise for their extensive network of cycling routes, however, the city received a zero score in terms of bike availability, as its bike sharing program was discontinued in 2021.
Just missing out on being in the top five, Manchester came in sixth place, scoring highly for its cyclist safety, bike shops and bike sharing schemes.
London came in last place at number 17, below Birmingham.
The factors considered in the survey were bicycle usage, the availability of bike share schemes, cyclist safety, the likelihood of bike theft and the impact of local weather conditions, such as average rainfall, on cycling.
The survey also found:
- 19% of over 50s choose cycling as an activity to keep physically active, while 86% cycle for leisure or as a hobby.
- Dangerous roads are the biggest barrier to cycling — cited by 57% of non-cyclists.
- Most people learnt to ride a bike between the ages of 5 and 10 (59% of respondents).
- London is the region where cyclists are most likely (35%) to say they cycle to stay physically active, compared to 17% in the East of England.