I live in Denver, and find the bike infrastructure to be criminally inadequate.
The same is true for the road infrastructure, but the bike lanes are set up to ensure that there's a continuous stream of dangerous and complex interactions where bicyclists would be effortlessly killed by a driver.
I ride a scooter around the city full time, like a small motorcycle, and it's so fast and easy and convenient.
I used to bike around the city but will never go back to biking.
heres a cool litle project showing where ive ridden in denver (and the world)
I've worked as a bicycle courier in Denver and DC.
Bike lanes have always felt kind of silly in my view. You're always being set up to collide with an opening car door or get T-boned by someone making a right on red. Worse yet, drivers will often try to overtake cyclists to make that right turn. Many are terrible at judging relative speeds.
Easy solution is to just skip the bicycle lanes. Move with traffic on the main thoroughfares. When possible operate on the residential side streets.
Bicycle lanes are part of the problem in that they create the wrong expectations for both cyclists and drivers. Cyclists still need to maintain just as much if not more situational awareness. Drivers expect cyclists to stick to the lane. As you approach any intersection you are going to want to move towards the center. Sure, get over to the side when it makes sense. No need to make a nuisance of yourself, but bike lanes create more problems than they solve.
Denver itself is a relatively rural area. Many drivers are unaccustomed to urban driving. On the plus side, you have extremely wide streets. I never attributed my experiences to a "lack of bike infrastructure". From my perspective the less planning, the better. Like the bike lanes, when they do build something, I doubt it would solve more problems than it creates.
London had a lot of these, when even after the first bigger set of infrastructure "cycle superhighways" went in.
There was a lot of outcry and fixes of some of the worst ones after various accidents.
Still a lot to do, but during COVID a lot of roads were experimentally closed, with pedestrian space increased and more cycle lanes it's been a big jump in some parts of London at least.
They may be less dangerous than a bike because they can go quite fast, matching the speed of cars when riding on the road, which helps you avoid dangerous situations in which car drivers try to pass you without enough space to do so. Good bicycle infrastructure can minimize this, though it doesn't seem like Denver has it.
I think in Europe they are defined as max of 50cc and top speed of 45. So slightly under urban speed limit. Not that lower limits aren't coming more common.
The 50cc/45 kmh or 4kw/45 kmh for electric ones defines a class of vehicles (mopeds L1, L1e-b if two wheels) that have a simpler registration and need a simpler driving license.
Electric powered bikes exist (Powered cycles, L1e-a) with 1 kW/25 kmh, while electric assisted bycicles and scooters[1] are "out of scope".
[1] the kind of electric sccoters with tiny wheels and no seat, "scooter", at least here in Italy, is commonly used to call anything with smaller wheels than a motorbike, it is used also for (powerful) motorbikes of class L3.
- the usual pedal-assisted ebike which is classified as a bicycle, pedal assistance up to 25 kmh
- bikes with pedal assistance up to 45 kmh, these need to be registered and need a special licence plate, and you need a driving licence to ride them. Bonus is (compared to a scooter) that if you turn the motor off then they are treated as normal bicycles, so you are allowed on all the bike paths where regular bikes are.
These latter ones are actually fast enough to keep up with city traffic easily, even though in Zurich there is a lot of bike infrastructure, so you wouldn't necessarily need them. I think they are the best of both worlds, bicycles and mopeds.
The same is true for the road infrastructure, but the bike lanes are set up to ensure that there's a continuous stream of dangerous and complex interactions where bicyclists would be effortlessly killed by a driver.
I ride a scooter around the city full time, like a small motorcycle, and it's so fast and easy and convenient.
I used to bike around the city but will never go back to biking.
heres a cool litle project showing where ive ridden in denver (and the world)
https://josh-strava-heatmap.herokuapp.com/