North American bike culture is changing. Fast. And a big part of that shift is in the type of bicycles people are choosing to ride. Traditional upright city bikes have seen an explosion in popularity in recent years, with real implications to the way we design and experience cities. While this trend may have started with images of stylish cycling Scandinavians circulating on blogs and social media, it is becoming increasingly clear these machines aren't just a style or passing fad. Urban bikes interact with the city environment in a notably different manner, broadening the way we provide citizens of all ages with healthier, happier, more social, and less expensive means of mobility. First and foremost, it's important to clarify what we mean by upright city bikes, and how they differentiate from other styles you may see. With their high, sweeping handlebars and sometimes step-through frames (which are not suggested to be gender-specific anywhere but in North America -- just practical, comfortable design), they are designed for a different posture: riding in an upright position -- rather than hunching over -- taking all strain off your back, shoulders, forearms, wrists, and hands. Not only are they designed for comfort, they're sturdier and safer, making them ideal for cruising at slower speeds, providing opportunities for an intimate, unfiltered awareness and experience of the people and places around you. They're not meant for long distances or off-roading, but are the perfect means for a short, slow, non-sweaty jaunt around your neighbourhood. To be perfectly clear, we have nothing against other styles of bike. We both have or have had just about every type, for different occasions and purposes, and there is room for each and every one of them on our city streets: mountain, hybrid, road, recumbent, unicycle, tricycle, tall-bike, or even electric-assisted. But as many North American bike cultures rapidly grow and mature, the number of machines specifically designed for urban movement is also increasing. That's a welcome development, because it's encouraging folks of all ages, abilities, and backgrounds to give it a try. The primary goal of modern bicycle planning is to increase ridership, predominantly among those less represented in current North American cycling: women, children, and seniors. The Holy Grail of bike planning is the achievement of 8-80 and 50/50 -- eight-year-old kids to 80-year-old seniors, and an equal split of men and women. The myriad benefits of accomplishing this have been well documented, and include economic, health, social, creativity, traffic congestion, and environmental advantages.

In recent decades in North America, a small niche of riders dominated cycling (if cycling existed at all); mostly able-bodied, middle-aged men, who rode fast, and dressed the part (including the so-called "middle aged men in lycra," or MAMILS). Until recently, much of the discussion among city designers has centred on how to design for them, with one of the most important challenges being providing facilities at work for showering and changing after all that sweating. For years, this made it very hard to grow ridership numbers beyond a limited base. Outside of North America -- particularly in Europe -- city cycling has always been a more diverse and inclusive endeavour. In key cycling cultures, almost everyone rides a bike for transportation -- including women, children, and seniors -- and they do it in their regular street clothes. It's not uncommon to spot women pedalling down the street in dresses and high heels, and men in suits, carrying open umbrellas if it's raining. It's not just that streets and places are designed differently in bike-friendly cities -- they are of course, many with a comprehensive network of safe and separated cycle tracks -- but it's also that bikes have been designed differently too. Amazingly, in the last five years or so, these bikes have spread everywhere -- perhaps most visibly in the proliferation of public bike-share schemes that utilize them almost exclusively -- and they are changing the conversation about how we design a more accessible, equitable and resilient city.