Denver’s Gnarliest Bikeway

The City's new official Denver Bike Map came out recently.

As we analyzed it for new Bike Streets routes, we also looked for this segment right by Mile High Stadium. Looks innocuous enough, right?

Turns out that spot is actually a staircase with 40 stairs.

No official word on this, but we're pretty sure this doesn't qualify as high comfort infrastructure in the City's bikeway hierarchy.

It's been on the map for years. Here's the City's previous version, which was printed in 2019. (Pour one out for B-Cycle, which had four stations close to Mile High.)

We figured it's high time we give this a try. So we left the commuter bikes in the garage and busted out the mountain bikes.

It was solid if you're looking for adrenaline. More importantly, it's an illustration of what we discussed in our previous post: in the pursuit of creating access, VAMOS Requirement #1, we must be on a constant, relentless quest for improvement.

We have to listen, observe, and reflect to identify what works and what doesn't for all people. And we have to get serious about moving quickly to fix those problems. We believe that's the way we'll be able to get people of all ages, abilities, and backgrounds to replace car trips with bike trips.