Five Of The World's Coolest Cycle Lanes

The Pink One

Auckland, New Zealand, wanted both a safe pathway across a busy motorway junction, and a way to join up the western side of their business district for cyclists. So they built a beautiful bike and pedestrian bridge. Then they painted it hot pink.

The 'pathway of light' opened in December 2015, attracting over a thousand cyclists every day in the first two weeks alone. The opening day was particularly special - the first tyres rolling over the pink paradise belonged to a posse of children in shiny green capes.

The Glowing One

Remember those glow stars you had on your bedroom ceiling as a kid? Well, in Nuenen, The Netherlands, they've taken things to the next level with a glow-in-the-dark cycle path! Once home to painter, Vincent Van Gogh, it only seemed right that the glowing  stones on the Nuenen bridge be arranged to resemble the artist's painting, The Starry Night.

Coated with a special glow-coating, the stones are charged up every day by a nearby solar panel. And, in case of a particularly dark day, there are also some LED lights around the path's edges. Much easier on the eye than streetlamps, the bridge also helps cut light pollution in the area - go Nuenen!

The One Through a River

'How would you like to immerse yourself totally in the pond landscape of the Wijers?' asks the Limburg tourist board in Belgium. if you've remembered your bike's wetsuit, it's easy. But if you and your bike would prefer to stay dry, Limburg have just built a 212m cycle path right through the lake, with the water at eye-level on both sides!

Limburg is already popular for cycling holidays. In fact, it was the first place to have numbered junctions along the 2000km cycle route. How's that for a claim to fame?

The Stripy One

This cycle path combines two of Cambridge's favourite things: bikes, and world-leading scientific research. This bridge celebrates the work of the nearby Sanger Institute who, in 1995, discovered the BRCA2 gene - a crucial discovery for the progression of cancer research.

Along the 1.5 mile path there are 10,257 stripes in four colours, each representing the genetic letters of the gene. And, at each end of the path lies a sculpture of the DNA double helix, which the clever cookies at Cambridge played a key role in uncovering back in the 1950s!

The City-Wide One

Plenty of cities in North America have cycle lanes, but Calgary went all out in one go. One June morning in 2015, they cut the ribbon on an entire network of segregated cycle paths in downtown Calgary - a first for North America.

What makes these paths especially awesome is the community support. The idea for the cycling network came from ordinary Calgarians who wanted safer cycling - and they campaigned to make it happen! On the first day four times the usual number of cyclists hit the roads. Calgary, we salute you!