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The EU country with the highest rate of cycling is The Netherlands, followed by Denmark and Finland. The EU country with the lowest rate of cycling is Malta, fo

The EU country with the highest rate of cycling is The Netherlands, followed by Denmark and Finland. The EU country with the lowest rate of cycling is Malta, followed by Cyprus and Spain. Finland is sparsely populated and almost entirely subarctic. Malta and Cyprus are tiny islands with year-round sunshine. You might think that bad weather and low population density are insurmountable obstacles to the widespread adoption of cycling, but you'd be objectively wrong. The key factor isn't climate or density or hills or infrastructure, it's culture. https://www.cyclinguk.org/article/campaigns-guide/cycling-levels-in-european-countries https://www.cyclinguk.org/article/campaigns-guide/cycling-le...

gotocake 8y ago
Well Cyprus is hot and muggy as hell in the summer, I wonder if that’s a factor? Malta is lovely and sunny, hot in the summer, and has torrential rains in fall. It’s famously hot and dry in summer, and when the rains do come they’re so brutal they tend to wash out to sea... it’s a real problem. So maybe it’s culture, or maybe it’s easy to dismiss something as “cultural” when we don’t actually understand the practical reasons on the ground. Let’s look at the other end of the scale, Denmark. Average summer day is 68F, which is terrific for a bike ride. The average winter high is 32F, which is freezing, but not terrible. Denmark’s wettest month is June with an average of 80mm of rain, contrasted with Malta which has three drenching month’s averaging between 97mm and 108mm.