Wausau named best small city in nation for bikes

Wausau Daily Herald

Riders will need to have high mountain biking skills to ride on the advanced trails at Sylvan. The easier trails will be more accessible to beginning riders.

WAUSAU - Dust off your bike and fill the tires with air. Warm weather is finally here and Wausau has been ranked the best small city in the country for cyclists.

According to the nonprofit People for Bikes, which advocates for bike-friendly policies, Wausau is a small city doing it right to encourage bicycling. The organization looked at the number of people in cities commuting by bike; traffic injury rates; whether cities were developing new cycling infrastructure and other criteria.

Wausau beat out Santa Monica, California and Carmel, Indiana in the small city division. In rankings of cities of all sizes, it came in second, behind Fort Collins, Colorado. Madison was the only other Wisconsin city to get a ranking: third in the large city division, and sixthoverall.

Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle.

One of the features in Wausau that likely came into consideration was the newly built Sylvan Hill mountain bike course, a 70-acre park that is home to about three miles of bike trails for bikers of all skill levels.

"This ranking recognizes not only the inherent bike-ability of small cities, but the important work volunteers, ride groups, elected officials and municipal staff have done to make Wausau a great place to bike and live," said Andrew Lynch, the transportation planner at the Wausau Metropolitan Planning Organization.

Wausau can expect new biking-related infrastructure, too, and there are still more improvements to come

"I'm very excited for the projects coming to fruition in the next few years and for the projects we've only dreamed of," Lynch said.

Top scoring cities in the Places for Bikes rating system

Large cities

1. Portland, Oregon

2. Tucson, Arizona

3. Madison, Wisconsin

4. Washington, D.C.

5. San Diego, California

Medium cities

1. Fort Collins, Colorado

2. Boulder, Colorado

3. Providence, Rhode Island

4. Ann Arbor, Michigan

5. Alexandria, Virgina

Small cities

1. Wausau

2. Santa Monica, California

3. Carmel, Indiana

4. Norwalk, Connecticut

5. Crested Butte, Colorado