Portland is the best biking city in America. Period.
It’s easy to run out of superlatives when you’re talking about the cycling scene in PDX: It’s a platinum-level Bicycle Friendly Community, and if there’s a poll or ranking of best biking cities, it’s almost always number one.
More than six percent of Portlanders commute by bike, the highest percentage for a large American city. Translation? The bike culture here is strong. With almost 400 miles of bikeways, and more in the works, urban riding is a breeze. Fantastic Forest Park makes gravel riding accessible within the city limits, and road rides run the gamut from Willamette River rambles to steep, punchy climbs just to the west.
Head up the Columbia River Gorge or toward Mount Hood for countless mountain biking trails, including popular Sandy Ridge, which winds and drops through Douglas fir and western red cedar forests.
But back to culture: every June, thousands of cyclists go commando for the World Naked Bike Ride, and the Pedalpalooza festival holds hundreds of rides each summer.