The UK has a long-standing love affair with cycling. In fact, there are over 7.5 million Brits who partake in the sport. But with city congestion making road travel as slow as ever, it’s becoming increasingly tempting to navigate the urban jungle on two wheels rather than four. But which UK towns and cities are the most cycle friendly?
After analysing metrics including the average cycling casualties per city, a city’s traffic rate, the cycling enthusiasm across the town and its people, and the recorded number of bike thefts within the area, The Compensation Experts has conducted a study to reveal the UK top 15 cycle friendly cities.
Cambridge crowned the UK’s city cycling hotspot!
Leading the way as the UK’s top city for cycling, Cambridge comes away with an impressive index score of 3.248 out of 4,000. This is helped by the city outranking all other UK locations for cycling enthusiasm, far ahead than Oxford and York who take second and third, respectively, for this category.
Oxford claims the runner up spot, placing as the second-best city across the UK for cycling, with an index score of 3.078.
You may wonder where our capital city is ranked, but in no surprise it ranks the lowest across each of the indexed cities, because of the intense city-wide traffic and high number of bike thefts (over ten times that of number one ranked Cambridge. However, the cities of Hull, York Bristol, and Brighton see more cycling accidents than any other, including London!
The top 15 UK cycle friendly cities can be seen below:
| Rank | Location | Population | Cycling Accidents | Traffic Score | Cycling Enthusiasm Score | Number of Bike Thefts |
| 1 | Cambridge | 123,900 | 476 | 4146 | 4.000 | 2,257 |
| 2 | Oxford | 152,450 | 390 | 3802 | 2.686 | 1,138 |
| 3 | Wigan | 328,662 | 122 | 1131 | 0.386 | 280 |
| 4 | Stockport | 293,423 | 167 | 1179 | 0.498 | 292 |
| 5 | Bolton | 287,550 | 115 | 1270 | 0.206 | 203 |
| 6 | Stoke-on-Trent | 256,375 | 144 | 756 | 0.191 | 304 |
| 7 | Barnsley | 246,866 | 154 | 1132 | 0.232 | 78 |
| 8 | Blackpool | 139,446 | 258 | 348 | 0.523 | 176 |
| 9 | Sunderland | 277,705 | 169 | 958 | 0.240 | 280 |
| 10 | Rotherham | 265,411 | 147 | 1416 | 0.171 | 94 |
| 11 | Coventry | 371,521 | 234 | 1052 | 0.541 | 371 |
| 12 | Bradford | 539,776 | 148 | 1566 | 0.217 | 264 |
| 13 | Leicester | 354,224 | 254 | 817 | 0.630 | 736 |
| 14 | Middlesbrough | 140,980 | 227 | 677 | 0.351 | 212 |
| 15 | Doncaster | 311,890 | 196 | 1927 | 0.445 | 263 |
Jonathan Corris Senior Marketing Manager at The Compensation Expert comments on the findings: “Cycling is proven to be a great way of travelling around a city whether that be for commuting or just for a leisure activity. It’s wonderful to see such a wide breadth of cities up and down the country ranking the best for cycling. We hope that more cities will put processes in place to make their city a cycle friendly destination in the near future”.
The full Compensation Experts study can be found at: https://the-compensation-experts.co.uk/uk-city-cycling-hotspots/
