Bristol's selection as the UK's first Cycling City should have come as no surprise. A thriving cycling culture has existed here for many years, with events like Bristol's Biggest Bike Ride and organisations such as Cycle Bristol fostering a healthy population of regular riders.  More than 5% of journeys were already made by bike before the award was announced - an unusually high proportion for a UK city.

Now, with £22.8m in funding in place, the city is launching an ambitious programme of new dedicated cycle routes and improvements to the existing infrastructure. Once completed the network will allow people to ride easily and safely from the Northern Fringe to the new Hengrove Park development in south Bristol.

Around the city centre new 20mph zones are to be trialled, while riders on the A38 in South Gloucestershire will be provided with a continuous safe route into the city. A link is to be established between Bristol and Nailsea via Ashton Court and Long Ashton as part of Sustrans' Connect2 project.

The overarching aim of Cycling City is to double the number of people riding bikes by 2011. This will require not just new cycle lanes but also a sea change in the way people perceive bikes and cycling - a return you might say to a time when everyone rode a bike without giving it too much thought. At present 50% of car journeys in the city are of 3 miles or less; the challenge is to get those drivers on their bikes.

To this end an extensive programme of adult cycle training will be accompanied by schemes and incentives to promote cycling to and from work, and by match-funded grants to help businesses install cycle parking, showers and other facilities.

Many Bristol schools already encourage cycling, and now pupils in Year 3 upwards will be offered free Bikeability Cycle Training. At the same time the popular Bike It scheme run by Sustrans will be extended to 72 schools.

We can learn a lot from the example of Copenhagen, a city in which a startling 36% of journeys are made by bike. Denmark is not immune to the perennial problems of conflict between bike and car, or of hot weather, hills and rain, but long-term investment and encouragement of cycling has created a bike culture that is enjoyed by a diverse mix of people.

In Bristol an already thriving bike culture is set to engage more and more people, with innovations like Bike Buddies, the new bike rental scheme Hourbike, the Cycle Hub at Temple Meads Station and the Bristol Bike Shed at Mud Dock, just off Queens Square.