How “Bikeable” is Duluth?

All I know is my own experience as a new Duluthian.  If you walk down the street and see bikes secured to streetsigns, fire hydrants, and light poles that means there are too few bike racks.  I can only find three on Superior Street.  Also take a look at the signage downtown that gives direction to bikers on their placement in the traffic flow.  Duluth is a completely wonderful place to bike, just much more challenging than it needs to be.

It would be nice if we had one of these bike lifts from Superior Street to Fourth Street on Lake Avenue.

It might be bikeable from east to west if you live lower than Sixth Street. But our commute would be almost straight downhill and straight uphill. Don't feel like risking a fall and breaking my noggin.

Biked ~25 miles everyday for several years, main problem was the .1% of drivers that felt it important to endanger my safety for "fun" by throwing things at me, swerving at me, harassing me, etc.  Overall, it isn't that bad, bar close and 3-4pm while school was in session were the worst times to be on the road by far.

Biking from my house to the Central Entrance area and back made me want to barf. Of course, I'm also in horrible shape and hadn't ridden a bike since I was around 10 years old.

I descend about 600 feet every morning and ascend it all again (and more) in the afternoon.  The route chosen is the real consideration here.  Back streets/roads/trails are much better than major travel corridors.  None of it is easy but it makes a lot of sense and is worth the time and effort.

I have seen that bike lift in Trondheim with my own eyes.  It would be awesome to have these built into our streets at key places.

The video doesn't do the hill justice.  I walked that hill and it is as steep as any I have walked in Duluth.   

I know you can put your bike on the bus but the bike lifts always run so you can go up the hill on your schedule vs. the bus schedule..

I bike to work now and then from UMD area to downtown (and back). I can report that despite what you might think, it's easier to get the elevation gain over all at once, rather than the "one block over, one block up" method. The loss of momentum is a killer.

Bikeable and Duluth should not be used in the same sentence.  I have lived in many different cities over the years and Duluth is by far the worst city for biking.  

Few riders and drivers know the laws. Most drivers hate bikers in this town. The roads are absolute crap, for some reason there is usually a pile of gravel at every intersection of this town making traction difficult.  

Also noticed there are way to many bikers giving the rest of us a bad name by blowing through intersections and in general disobeying most traffic laws. Don't even get me started about Critical Mass.