Cycling Radius Map

A cyclist at 12 mph covers 3 miles in 15 minutes. In Amsterdam, that 15-minute polygon is a big, nearly-circular blob because the bike network is continuous and nearly every street is ridable. In Houston, the same 15-minute polygon has sharp, asymmetric fingers that stretch along the two bike lanes that exist and collapse everywhere else. Same speed, same time, wildly different shapes. The network dictates the polygon.

Elevation matters more than anyone expects. A 10% grade cuts cycling speed by about 40%. San Francisco's Russian Hill neighborhood loses roughly half its theoretical cycling radius to vertical terrain alone. Portland's West Hills have similar asymmetry: easy to coast downhill into downtown, brutal coming back. RadiusMapper factors elevation into the network cost, so the polygon reflects real physics, not theoretical average speed.

Then there's the e-bike shift. Class-1 pedal-assist e-bikes cruise at 18-20 mph comfortably and flatten most hills. The result: a 30-minute e-bike polygon is roughly 2× the area of a 30-minute regular-bike polygon in a flat city, and up to 3× in a hilly one. When planners model bike-commute eligibility for a workforce, the e-bike polygon is the number that matters now. Standard-bike assumptions leave reachable commuters out of the count.

Raw distance isn't the whole story of a cycling radius. Bike lane density decides whether that radius is actually usable. In cities with sparse, stroad-dominated networks, a 15-minute cycling radius on paper becomes a white-knuckle detour in practice, and most riders simply won't make the trip. In cities with dense, connected bike lanes, the same 15 minutes covers the same distance but unlocks far more destinations because every direction is ridable.

Copenhagen is the global benchmark. The Danish capital maintains roughly 390 km of dedicated bike lanes, and cycling accounts for more than half of daily commutes into the city center. The result: a 15-minute cycling radius from almost any Copenhagen address reliably includes work, school, groceries, and a harbor swim. Amsterdam tells the same story with its famously uninterrupted network. The city was rebuilt around bikes after the 1970s "Stop de Kindermoord" movement, and bike-lane continuity is now a design default rather than a feature.

The emerging variable is the e-bike shift. Because an e-bike cruises comfortably at 18–25 mph (29–40 km/h) versus 12 mph on a regular bike, the practical cycling radius on an e-bike is typically 2–3× larger. A 30-minute e-bike commute covers what used to be a 60–90 minute ride. For urban planners this changes the math: bike-lane investments don't just serve existing cyclists, they activate a much bigger radius for every new e-bike sold. For businesses and real-estate teams, it means bike commute eligibility now reaches farther out than "bike-friendly neighborhood" maps traditionally assumed.