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Starting out there are so many options, it can be overwhelming! Look for a bike that is accessible and cheap. Over time you will figure out what you do or don’t like about your bike’s features, and doing a future upgrade (if you want to) will be less of a burden if you didn’t spend much at the beginning. If you already have a bike, use that. Otherwise for most mobile adults choosing a bike from the Hybrid category will provide a good mix of speed and comfort. If you want to prioritize speed or comfort exclusively, either bikes from the Road or Upright categories would be the right choice.

Bikes come in sizes, kind of like shirts, so try to find a bike in the size that matches your leg inseam. You don’t need to worry so much about the brand as long as it is a type you would buy at a bike shop, not a big box store. The box store brands are more likely to break and the box store brands don’t sell spare parts. To know the difference, just google “Brand bike” and if the first hits to buy are Amazon and Walmart instead of bike-specific or outdoor stores then you know to avoid them! To be budget conscious, you can find many quality used bikes on Craigslist, Facebook marketplace, or at your Local Bike Shop. Madison is also lucky to have some great nonprofits who can help connect individuals in need with bikes (Wheels for Winners, Bikes for Kids Wisconsin, and DreamBikes).

There are too many potential options to mention them all, but there are a few common ones which are frequently used to improve comfort, convenience, and safety! On the comfort side, one of the most important pieces to upgrade is your saddle. The saddles which come as default on bikes are rarely great. Getting a better saddle and one designed with specifically male or female anatomy in mind, can make a world of difference in comfort! Of course double check the height and orientation of your current saddle first, especially if you are experiencing pain and discomfort riding – it often means your saddle is too high, or too low, or tipped!

For convenience, many of us are hooked on phone navigation, so getting a handlebar phone mount will help you get to unfamiliar places in the city. There is a lot of construction across Madison in the summer, and bits of debris on the road can lead to flats. Getting puncture resistant tires can reduce your likelihood of flats substantially!

Finally there are two safety accessories which bike commuters commonly acquire. One is a mirror, mounted either on your handlebar or helmet, to keep an eye on traffic coming up behind you. The other is a bell mounted on your handlebars, to notify pedestrians on a path ahead of you to be aware that you are approaching.

You can bike in many types of conditions with some preparation! Stay dry biking in the rain with a rain jacket, pants, and waterproof shoes. If you would have the opportunity to change at your destination, you could also bring a fresh set of clothes in your pannier. Putting fenders on your bike will prevent muddy spray from splashing on your back.

In cold weather, a buff or balaclava will keep your neck, head, and ears warm. Pogies are big mitts which go over your handlebars and keep your hands warm. You can also get a studded tire which will grip better on ice.

Carrying items in a backpack on a bike gets old quickly! Fortunately, there are many different options for places to carry items on your bike. One of the most common ways to add cargo capacity to the bike is to put on a back rack.

You can strap bags on top of the rack or put things in panniers, which are bags specifically designed to latch onto the sides of the rack. A lot of panniers are waterproof to protect your items from the rain. Other common bike cargo options are frame bags for odds and ends, water bottle holders, and handlebar baskets.

If your bike has been neglected for a while, it could probably use some TLC! If you take it to your local bike shop, the shop mechanic will check your brakes, make sure your wheels are true, the tires are in good shape, and that your chain is lubed and gear shifters are adjusted. They should also help you make sure your bike seat is adjusted properly.

Then if you don’t already have them, there are three essential additional items to get. The first is a helmet! Helmets save lives, don’t ride without one! The second item is a pair of bike lights, front and back. Even if you don’t intend to be out when it gets dark, something might affect your plans and you’ll be glad to have them. The USB rechargeable lights are great. The third thing to get is a bike lock. No lock is fool-proof, but any lock will help prevent someone from just walking away with your bike.

It is common to feel nervous about cycling on streets at first, but fortunately there are a lot of great resources for learning to cycle safely on the road. Wisconsin Bike Fed has in-person training programs for all ages. Other online resources are The League of American Cyclists and CyclingSavvy.org. RoundTrip-Madison is also connecting new or aspiring bike commuters with an experienced bike buddy.

E-bikes are bicycles equipped with a battery and a motor, and they are a game changer for bicycle accessibility. Ebikes allow you to go faster, further, and conquer hills you might not have been able to without them. While more expensive than a regular bike, they are still significantly less expensive than a car, and in many situations, they can completely replace one! There are 3 classes of ebike in the US:

Class 1: Pedal-assist only, with no throttle, and a max assist speed of 20 mph.

Class 2: Includes a throttle (so you can ride without pedaling) and also tops out at 20 mph.

Class 3: Pedal-assist only, but goes up to 28 mph—great for longer commutes but may be restricted on some bike paths.

Ebikes come in about as many forms of regular bike: hybrid, road, mountain, folding, cargo, and more. Cargo ebikes are the ultimate car-replacer. Some models, like “Cargo” or “Family” from Urban Arrow, have a large bucket on the front to carry anything from groceries to furniture, and even children!

In addition to replacing car trips, you still get exercise on an ebike. While it’s less effort than a regular bike, riding a pedal-assist ebike still allows you to move your body while putting less strain on your muscles and joints, and you still get the mental health benefits of being outside. Some studies have even shown that ebike owners get more exercise than on their regular bike, simply because they use them more frequently and for longer trips.

If you are curious about ebiking and want to try it without a huge investment, Madison BCycle is available for single ride, monthly, and annual passes. Open from March 15th to December 15th each year, with dozens of stations around the Madison area and hundreds of bikes– all electric! Just download the app, as it’s the quickest and easiest way to register and get a pass.

First you are in luck because Madison is a platinum rated bike city, so it’s a great place to use your bike to get to work or to run errands! There are many benefits to using bikes as transportation: health, community, environmental, and financial.

An 18 year study of 82 thousand adults found that cycle commuting halves the chance of early death. Cycle commuters greatly reduced their incidences of heart disease, cancer, and mental health conditions.

Biking also increases connections among neighbors, improves neighborhood safety, and reduces travel times for everyone because bikes take up far less space on streets than motor vehicles.

Replacing motor vehicle trips with cycling trips reduces carbon emissions, air pollution, noise pollution, and the disruptive and energy intensive construction of motor vehicles and their associated infrastructure. It’s one of, if not the most, effective ways for regular people to help the environment!

Finally, the average total cost of owning a motor vehicle in America is now $12,000 a year! On the other hand, a reasonable estimate for bicycle ownership and maintenance over a 10 year lifecycle might be ~$500 per year. If you have the capability to replace a motor vehicle with a bike for most of your travel needs, you can save a lot of money! If you are concerned about the occasional trip which requires a motor vehicle, a car-share service like Zipcar could help bridge that gap.

First to get an idea of what dedicated cycling infrastructure is available on your route, check out the Dane County Bicycle Map. Separated paths are highlighted in Lime Green. Streets highlighted in Jungle Green or Blue are recreational routes and bike boulevards. These routes may have some separated paths and are also the safest on-street routes for cyclists with features like diverters which make the street one-way for cars but two-way for bikes. Brown indicates streets with bike lanes, though these might not be suitable for all ages and abilities.

Google maps is pretty good at choosing comfortable cycling routes from A to B when you tell it to design a route for a cyclist. Google maps also has layers (toggle is bottom left corner on PC, upper right on mobile) which you can use to highlight cycling specific infrastructure. If you are traveling somewhere in Madison you haven’t been before, you can also look at the city’s Low-Stress Bike Route Finder to see if you are likely to be comfortable on those streets.

Madison has a zoning code ordinance that details how much bike parking needs to be included with new construction and what kind of bike parking meets the requirements. This ordinance does not apply to already constructed buildings, but businesses or property owners may respond to a friendly ask for bike parking anyway. See above, “A place I am biking to doesn’t have bike parking.”

You can report abandoned bikes on public property via the city’s Report-a-Problem form.

If it is a private rack, contact the property owner or management company.

If the bike is parked on the UW campus, email their bike/ped coordinator. 

Reach out to the business and tell them about the City’s program to have bike parking installed. https://www.cityofmadison.com/bikeMadison/programs/bikeParking.cfm 

For more details and email templates you can use, read this blog post.

There are multiple options to buy an annual or daily Wisconsin State trail pass:

• At a trail kiosk: Most trails have multiple self-registration kiosks at trailheads. Fill out the form, put cash or a check into the envelope, and take the temporary trail pass with you. If you buy an annual pass, the Department of Natural Resources will mail you your permanent pass in a couple of days.
• At bike and other shops: Several local bike shops, including Budget Bicycle Center, Wheel & Sprocket, Erik’s, and REI sell trail passes. Other businesses near to trailheads also sell them, for example Olde Towne Coffee House at the Glacial Drumlin Trail in Cottage Grove, Miller & Sons in Verona, or the Grumpy Troll in Mount Horeb. There will often be signs on the trail mentioning these businesses.
• Online: If you want to include a donation, you can order a pass from the Friends of Wisconsin State Parks. Without additional cost, you can order a pass on ReserveDane.

Take a picture (if possible) and submit a report via the city’s Report-a-Problem form: https://www.cityofmadison.com/reportaproblem/bikeway.cfm This is usually a very effective way to have things fixed. If the issue is on the UW campus, email their bike/ped coordinator.

Some things that may help get an issue fixed:

• take a picture that shows the problem (or include a little sketch that helps understand the exact location or problem)
• include sufficient detail in your problem description
• be nice
• follow up if the problem persists (also see below) 

You can contact your district’s alder or use the public comment period at a meeting of the Pedestrian/Bicycle/Motor Vehicle Commission to escalate the issue. Your neighborhood association may also be a good resource. Try posting on Nextdoor and see if you can get your neighbors interested in the issue. Finally, you could email us at Madison Bikes to get advice or post about the issue on our Facebook Group.

If you think this poses an immediate danger, between 8am and 4pm call Traffic Engineering at (608) 266-4767. At other times, call 911. For less urgent problems (e.g. a loop detector that doesn’t detect you on a bike), use the Report-a-Problem website. You can use the Street Signs or the Bikeway Concerns categories. The latter lets you upload a picture, which sometimes makes for a more effective report.

Become a Madison Bikes Member. It’s free! Every Monday we publish a blog post with past and upcoming events for the week. You can subscribe to them via email, RSS, and we also post them to our Facebook Page and Group.

There are lots of excellent maps of our bike network. For Madison and Dane County you can get free printed maps as well as pdfs. The Department of Transportation also has pdf bike maps for any county in the state. And the Bike Fed sells printed statewide maps.

Madison

Dane County

Wisconsin all counties

Wisconsin Statute 347.489(1) states that if you ride your bike in the dark, you must have a white front light (either attached to the bike or to yourself, e.g. as a helmet light) as well as a red reflector or red light in the rear. This is the full text of the statute:

347.489  Lamps and other equipment on bicycles and other vehicles and devices.

(1)  No person may operate a bicycle, motor bicycle, personal delivery device, or electric personal assistive mobility device upon a highway, sidewalk, bicycle lane, or bicycle way during hours of darkness unless the bicycle, motor bicycle, personal delivery device, or electric personal assistive mobility device is equipped with or, with respect to a bicycle or motor bicycle, the operator is wearing, a lamp emitting a white light visible from a distance of at least 500 feet to the front of the bicycle, motor bicycle, personal delivery device, or electric personal assistive mobility device. A bicycle, motor bicycle, personal delivery device, or electric personal assistive mobility device shall also be equipped with a red reflector that has a diameter of at least 2 inches of surface area or, with respect to an electric personal assistive mobility device, that is a strip of reflective tape that has at least 2 square inches of surface area, on the rear so mounted and maintained as to be visible from all distances from 50 to 500 feet to the rear when directly in front of lawful upper beams of headlamps on a motor vehicle. A lamp emitting a steady or flashing red light visible from a distance of 500 feet to the rear may be used in lieu of the red reflector.

Wisconsin Statute 347.489(1)

This is the legal minimum requirement, but it’s probably a good idea to have an actual light and not just a reflector in the rear. Also keep in mind that certain lights can be very irritating to other people on bikes or on foot, especially when they are aimed to high or flashing rapidly.

Yes, you can see all the numbers from the two counters online.

Southwest Path: http://www.eco-public.com/public2/?id=100117717

Cap City: http://www.eco-public.com/public2/?id=100020865#

Madison has several of those! Check out Wheels for Winners, Freewheel Bike Collective, Free Bikes 4 Kids, and DreamBikes. 

Madison plows arterial bike paths 7 days a week and holidays.

You need a trail pass to ride “on the nine miles of the trail that go through the Capital Springs E-way south of Madison between Verona Road and Nob Hill near Industrial Drive.” However, you can request a subsidized pass if you use the trail primarily for commuting. Cap City Trail website.

Yes, you can. After a question from a Madison Bikes supporter and some back-and-forth emails, we received this response from Metro:

We discussed and have approved bringing your folding bike onboard (so long as it is folded). As with any large item, the key is to make sure to minimize disruption to other passengers ability to move about the bus. Sometimes it takes a bit of trial and error to find the best spot to stow your large item but I’m sure you’ll develop a system.

I have notified our dispatchers and asked them to get the word out to drivers. We have a very large driver group and it may take a while to get the word out to everyone. Because this is a new development for them, you could encounter some drivers that will not allow the bike on. Please let me know if this happens and I can contact the driver. Our policy still stands that we will not allow bikes inside of buses because of their size, but in my mind, a folding bike isn’t a bike when it’s folded…it’s a bunch of bike parts being transported in a nice neat organized fashion.

Madison Metro

Yes, you can, at least within the City of Madison. Madison has an ordinance that prohibits businesses from denying service to people on bikes at drive-throughs. Code of Ordinances, 28.151, Vehicle Access Sales and Service Windows, section (g) states: “Bicyclist use of sales and service windows shall not be prohibited.”

Our primary focus is on Madison. However, our vision acknowledges that connections to neighboring communities are very important and many bike issues don’t stop at city boundaries. Several communities have their own bike advocacy organizations, and we cooperate with them.

• Bike Fitchburg
• Sun Prairie Moves

For places further away from Madison and for questions at the state level, there is the Wisconsin Bike Fed.

Our primary focus is riding for transportation. If you’re interested in MTBing, Capital Offroad Pathfinders is doing great work in and around Madison!

For the most part, it is legal to ride on the sidewalk in and around Madison. More details are below. If you decide to ride on the sidewalk, be nice to people walking, and be aware that people in cars may not expect you at intersections or driveways.

Madison

Riding your bike on the sidewalk is generally allowed in Madison. The exception is where buildings extend all the way to sidewalk, as is the case in many parts of downtown or in commercial districts such as Williamson Street or Monroe Street. The City has a brochure giving you the details. Another exception are the inside sidewalks on the Capitol Square. No biking allowed there, because the state government says so. If you ever need the exact city ordinance:

(1) No person shall ride a bicycle on the sidewalk where a building abuts the sidewalk. Bicycle riding  on sidewalks is  permitted, except as prohibited in this subsection and otherwise regulated in this  chapter.

12.76 SPECIAL RULES APPLICABLE TO BICYCLES.

Monona

Riding your bike on the sidewalk is generally allowed in Monona. The exception is Monona Drive between Winnequah and the city limits with Madison:

(E) Operation on Sidewalks.

(1)Bicycles shall not be operated on Monona Drive sidewalks from the northern limits of the City to Winnequah Road and on the Yahara Cove Boardwalk at River Place.

(2)Whenever any person is riding a bicycle upon a sidewalk, such person shall yield the right-of-way to any pedestrian and shall give audible signal before overtaking and passing such pedestrian.

City Ordinance