“All you need are good roads.” That’s a Big expensive undertaking. In Canada (which is ever so slightly bigger than Finland) the roads range from excellent to abysmal. In the US the roads often have potholes and little accommodation for cycles, and the U.K. has some of the worst roads I’ve seen outside of a developing nation. Finland is also a small country with a population which all lives in the same climate. Countries like the US and Canada are huge, and far more populous, with population densities varying wildly. In addition, the climate ranges from lovely to arctic.

Needless to say, this creates a host of issues you won’t find in Helsinki, where 1.2m of Finland’s 5m inhabitants live. A bunch of very similar people living in the equivalent of one American state or small Canadian province, speaking the same language and sharing the same culture and weather can make roads and cycling a priority. Good luck scaling that.