• Montreal, Quebec

Although Montreal’s streets are notoriously falling to pieces and full of potholes, it remains one of the best bicycle cities in North America. With over 200 miles of well-kept bike paths, lanes and street signs, Montreal’s infrastructure is easier to navigate for cyclists than it is for drivers. Twice named North America’s top cycling city by Bicycling Magazine, Montreal is a great place to ride a bike, so long as you don’t mind being doored by parked cars and having the odd bike stolen.

Bike tour: The Lachine Canal bike path. This short, nine-mile route winds alongside the Lachine Canal, past Lac-St-Louis, and into Old Montreal where the St. Lawrence River separates the island of Montreal from its south shore.

• San Francisco, California

There are easier cities to cycle, and bike theft is rampant here, but San Francisco is a mountainous treat and a classic bicycle city. Just imagine bombing down hills like you’re Steve McQueen and your Peugeot Deluxe is a ’68 Ford Mustang. If, however, you’re just a working urbanite in need of a good bike path, biking has long been central to San Francisco’s transportation infrastructure, with over 40,000 commuters on two wheels.

Bike tour: The Golden Gate Bridge. But after the bridge, be sure to continue north, picking up the Tiburon Loop for 35 miles of rolling hills and vistas of the Bay.

• Barcelona, Spain

Like New York, Barcelona is a cosmopolitan city in eco-flux, expanding its bicycle infrastructure at a frenzied pace. The city has created a “green ring” around the metropolitan area, while introducing a new communal bike service that allows members to pick up a bike from one of 100 stations and leave it at another. As a safeguard against widespread theft, the city is building underground bike parkades.

Bike tour: Seafront Barcelona. Bike lanes stretch the length of Barcelona’s beautiful beaches. Keep your head up, though: The bikini-clad Catalan girls provide some lethal eye candy for an otherwise leisurely bicycle tour.

• Seattle, Washington

As one the best bicycle cities around, Seattle provides some phenomenal examples of architectural adaptation. The city has recently completed a beautifully designed bike bridge over I-25, and plans are already in the works to go under I-5 and craft a subterranean mountain bike park, making use of 1.5 acres of hidden land. Another interesting feature of the Seattle bike world is the Velo Swap, an annual bike garage sale and one of the world’s most popular ecological events.

Bike tour: The Burke-Gilman Trail. Riding alongside Lake Washington, the Burke-Gilman trail winds through 90 miles of urban Seattle and through 175 miles of the King County Trail system.

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