Living the dream in Copenhagen. (Photo by Mikael Colville Andersen.)

Once was that American cities competed to look more like Detroit, with gleaming lanes of highway stretching as far as the eye could see. Any more, it’s a race to imitate Copenhagen, the Danish capital where 36 percent of residents commute to work via bicycle.

So it seems, at least, when looking at today’s announcement by the League of American Bicyclists of the latest -- and largest -- round of official Bicycle Friendly Communities in the U.S. Some of the cities on the list will come as no surprise: Portland, San Francisco, and Chicago are here, as is Missoula, Mont., where 7 percent of residents bike to work, versus the 0.6 percent national average. But so are cities like Baltimore, Cincinnati, and Cottonwood, Ariz. Twenty-five more cities applied for bicycle-friendly status, but were denied.

The league hands down its Bicycle Friendly certification with a multi-tier, Olympics-like grading system: Cities can earn bronze, silver, gold, and platinum. The awards, which have been around since 1996, recognize cities that both promote cycling as a means of transportation and actively work to make cycling safer. A panel of national experts brought in by the league and local enthusiasts (bike shop owners, advocacy group leaders) assesses applications along five main criteria: engineering, education, encouragement, evaluation and planning, and enforcement.

The best cities, League of American Bicyclists President Andy Clarke says, have action plans in place to ensure that residents have opportunities to ride. They have city-sponsored bike rides, and networks of bike trails, lanes, and sharrows that connect them to where they need to go.

Photo by Shannon Donegan.

A version of this story originally appeared on Sightline.

I fell in love with cycling during six months I spent traveling the world’s great bicycle cities. The ease, safety, convenience … (dreamy sigh)

But as my trip came to an end, I began to realize the reason for my infatuation: Residents of cities like those in Denmark and Holland inject cycling with fun, whimsy, and even romance.

Certainly, many Americans love their bikes, but even more of us would if we learned these five lessons on cycling’s soft side from the world’s active-transport capitals.

Photo by Bastien Vaucher.

This year marks the 10th anniversary of our Ask Umbra advice column, and to celebrate, we’re pulling one particularly poignant question or tidbit of eco-advice out of the archives each week. Today, a question from a bicyclist in Berkeley:

"My skirt gets caught in the bicycle chain ... Do you know any wonderful manufacturers out there who can solve my problem?"

Read on to see Umbra’s answer. Plus: She shares a website that’ll show you how to make your own “skirt guard.” And don’t you go anywhere, fellas: It works for kilts and coat tails, too.

Oh sure, biking to work helps you keep toned leg muscles, like a good trophy wife. But it also reduces carbon emissions, and everyone knows that saving the environment is for poor people. No, what you need is a chauffeured Cadillac SUV with a built-in stationary bike, so you can do your morning exercise while James ferries you to the office. (Ha ha, just kidding! Like you go to an office. You can pedal while James ferries your husband to the office, and then takes you back home so you can direct the rest of the staff.)

Photo by Richard Masoner/ Cyclelicious.

Today, America kicks off National Bike Month, our annual homage to two-wheeled travel. Here in Seattle, Grist’s hometown, every month can seem like bike month: Hearty souls ride in weather when full scuba gear is requisite. But today brought sunshine, and cyclists swarmed the streets, swerving through traffic, towing kiddie trailers through downtown rush hour, and generally acting like they owned the place.

It was great to see so many people out riding. I was also afraid I was going to see someone die. So for the sake of a safe and successful Bike Month, Grist is offering up a challenge to would-be bike commuters everywhere -- and a few suggestions on how to get started.

Get your ass on that bike!

Apparently this adorable bike-guarding dog lives in Nanning, China, where he's known as Li Li the Bike Hugging Dog.

Happy No-Pants Day! (Photo by James Calder.)

When it comes to transit, even the best of us have a bad attitude. In my own case, I ride the commuter train because it’s the lesser of evils: Driving to work sucks, and the train sucks a bit less. Among those with stronger environmental devotions, transit can be an obligation: We ride the bus or train because it’s the right thing to do, not because we enjoy it.

It doesn’t have to be that way, argues urban planner Darrin Nordahl. His potent new e-book, Making Transit Fun!, has all the enthusiasm for buses, trains, and bike lanes that its title’s exclamation point implies. Can transit incorporate art? Yes! How about playground equipment? You bet. Even … sex? Oh yeah, baby.

The automobile industry has employed the best designers and marketers (and even Posh Spice) to make driving cars cool, sexy, exhilarating -- and piss on transit options like biking. “Here is where we transit advocates need to take a lesson from Corporate America,” Nordahl writes. “You cannot get sufficient numbers of people to buy a product or service if it doesn’t excite them.”

Michael J. Wallace may start his bike rides in Baltimore, but he ends them on the moon, on a basketball court, or in the mouth of a dragon. He uses the streets of the city as a canvas, sketching out surprisingly detailed images by recording his progress with his phone's GPS and a tracking program.

A study of driving habits found that one in six motorists in Baltimore passed cyclists at an illegal distance, making them eligible to be shot to death under “stand your ground” laws, assuming we could somehow combine the laws of Maryland and Florida.