Why Washington and Minnesota are the most bicycle-friendly states in the US

Cold-weather states like Minnesota, Washington, and Massachusetts are some of the best places in the US to be a cyclist — at least according to the League of American Bicyclists.

Each year, the league releases a new set of rankings for the country's most bicycle-friendly states. Here are the top 10, with ratings on a scale from 0 to 100:

It might initially seem crazy for these rankings to ignore the fact that Minnesota is absolutely frigid much of the year, or that Colorado is so mountainous. But lots of research shows that infrastructure and local policies are more important than climate in getting people to bike.

Here, for comparison, is a map of the percentage of people who commute to work by bike daily in each state, from the most recent US Census American Community Survey (conducted in 2011):

It's not a perfect correlation, but the states that systematically do the most to encourage biking tend to have many more people who bike to work every day.

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