In London cyclists now outnumber cars in the City, the financial district, by two to one. Paris, where they now outnumber motorists across the whole city, is catching up with Europe’s traditional bike capitals, Amsterdam and Copenhagen, though cycling is still growing in those cities, too. In Copenhagen, the Danish capital, bikes account for almost half of commuter journeys to work and school.

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Even in Beijing, just 30 years after most cyclists were pushed off the city’s roads to make way for cars, the number of cyclists is rising again. Only these days they are more likely to be riding a fancy Brompton bike than a black Flying Pigeon, the ubiquitous pedal-powered ride in the years after the communist revolution.

E-bikes (of a sort) are booming in the developing world, too. In Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, electric rickshaws are rapidly replacing petrol-powered ones. Electric-motorbike taxis are also growing rapidly in many east African cities.

The first reason for this two-wheeled renaissance was covid-19. After the pandemic struck, sales of bikes soared as commuters tried to avoid public transport and governments introduced pop-up bike lanes to encourage social distancing. In one American survey 18% of respondents said they had bought a bike, many of them for the first time ever, contributing to a 16% increase in the average weekly number of bike trips between the summers of 2019 and 2020. In Tokyo 23% of businessmen switched to cycling to work to avoid crowds on the train.

The second reason was the advance in battery and e-bike technologies, which made them cheaper and more fun to ride. By giving cyclists a pedal assist, these open up riding to people who cannot comfortably squeeze themselves into slim-fit Lycra. Workers can turn up at a meeting without breaking a sweat or needing to change. They are especially useful for transporting children and groceries, which is hard going if done by pedal power alone. E-bikes have also massively accelerated the use of local bike-share schemes, and made them profitable. With Chicago’s “Divvy” bike scheme for example, e-bikes are now ridden 70% more than “classic” bikes, despite being a lot pricier.

The third reason is a spread of bike-friendly infrastructure. Bicycles mostly died out as a form of transport in the mid-20th century not only because cars were faster and cushier, but also because cars made cycling catastrophically dangerous. In 1950 no fewer than 805 cyclists were killed on the roads in Britain—ten times the number killed last year.

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Yet safer bike lanes are often pitted in opposition to cars in a zero-sum fight for road space and parking places, putting cyclists and motorists on opposite sides of an increasingly acrimonious culture war. Though bike lanes take up less than 2% of road space in Montreal (cars get 80% and pedestrians the balance), they are a hot issue in its mayoral election on November 2nd. Soraya Martinez Ferrada, the leading opposition candidate, wants to pause new bike lanes and remove those that make business owners anxious.

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E-bikes do raise some genuine problems. Because they are heavier and go faster (and are often ridden by novices) accidents can be worse than on traditional bikes. Lime’s bikes in London have been blamed by doctors for a surge in broken legs. In the Netherlands deaths of cyclists hit a record high in 2022. E-bike riders face death rates that are sharply higher than for riders of normal bikes. Worries about teenagers getting injured have led dozens of suburbs in America to ban electric bikes.

Adding to this problem is the rise of illegal, fast e-bikes—the sort that can accelerate via a throttle, not just pedals. In London and New York City these have become favourites of food-delivery riders, who make more money the faster they can go. In most cities in the United States only bikes with pedals and a maximum speed of 20mph (32kph) are allowed in bike lanes. In Europe the equivalent speed limit is 25kph. But many Chinese manufacturers sell bikes or motors that can be modified to go far faster. These scare pedestrians and risk poisoning the boom.