Norwegian city makes it easy for bikers to ride up steep hills

This one goes out to all the city cyclists who have pulled up to the bottom of a steep-ass hill with three words echoing through their head: Oh. Hell. No. The Norwegian city of Trondheim built a special bike-lift that gives folks with wheels a free ride, no pedaling required. The clever installation has actually been around for over two decades now; Trampe, the original, was set up in 1993, but was replaced last year by a new, patented CycloCable design.

When we recently showed an elevator designed for pedestrians and cyclists,readers were not impressed, calling it serious overkill when all that was needed to get up the hill was a decent path with switchbacks. This may be true for the serious cyclist, but for the average commuter cyclist or older rider, hills can be a real impediment. One city in Norway dealt with this problem with the Trampe, a sort of ski lift for cyclists. Trondheim first installed it in 1993 and rebuilt it with a newer,supposedly safer system called the CycloCable in 2013. Diehards may say that this kind of thing isn’t necessary, but 41% of the users in Trondheim say they are bicycling more because of it.