help us brainstorm our perfect vacation place.

Oh here is my Flickr albums of http://www.flickr.com/photos/29389570@N00/sets/72157613112792403/, http://www.flickr.com/photos/29389570@N00/sets/72157607778440552/, http://www.flickr.com/photos/29389570@N00/sets/72157607280325204/, and http://www.flickr.com/photos/29389570@N00/sets/72157607280264278/ Here is https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.844893205100.2568111.1929481&type=1, unfortunately my camera broke there so I didn't take many. I also went to http://www.flickr.com/photos/29389570@N00/sets/72157613150305900/, which I loved, but it's not very bike friendly from what I could gather. http://www.flickr.com/photos/29389570@N00/sets/72157607406584734/ was absolutely amazing, but very pricey. If you go a more expensive place, I'd pick Bergen because of the mountains and Fjords. You have to be in good shape to bike there though. Estonia and Latvia can also function as 1-day trips if you are in Stockholm. It costs about $50 (windowless room, you can pay more for a nicer one) for an overnight cruise to those places (or Finland or Lithuania). You spend the night on the ship, wake up in Estonia, spend the day there, and then spend another night on the ship and then you are back in Stockholm. There were no other Americans besides my friends on the boats I took, so it was a very interesting experience. We had a great time singing Latvian karaoke one night. Everyone laughed at our mispronunciation and bought us drinks. I thought Budapest was probably the most impressively beautiful place I visited. I should also mention that the art museums and classical music there are incredible.

Berlin ticks all your boxes. Stay in Kreuzberg or Mitte or somewhere in the former East side. Copenhagen is boring.

I don't think it gets much more bike-friendly than Amsterdam. And it's such a flat country, it's easy to ride well out of town. I also would say central Paris is pretty bikeable. And they've got http://en.velib.paris.fr/ going on. If you're not interested in touristy stuff, you might skip it, although the buildings are so beautiful there. And, if you did Amsterdam first, it's a short train trip (three hours).

My vote goes to Maastricht. You'd be a couple of hours away by train/car from some great cities (Antwerp, Brussels, Bonn, etc.) if you wanted a change of scenery. If you like food, try to time your visit for http://crossroadsmag.eu/2008/08/28-31-aug-preuvenemint-culinary-festival-in-maastricht/, where you can get a taste of what the local restaurants have to offer. As for beer -- well, you would be well placed for it; the good doctor and I spent many a pleasant evening downing pints at the various pubs lining the canal. It's definitely bike-friendly, as https://dutchandy.wordpress.com/2009/06/09/fietsen/ can attest to.

Stockholm has some touristy bits, but they're pretty contained to Gamla Stan, in my opinion. From Stockholm, you can also go out on boat trips to the archipelago and even spend a few nights out on various islands.

I was going to suggest Stockholm, too. It meets most of your requirements, except for the spendy bit. Still in Sweden, Lund is another alternative. It's a college town, not very far from Malmo, which also means only a ferry-boat ride (or drive across the bridge) away from Copenhagen. It might be possible to find some kind of sublet in the summer. For Scandinavia in general I'd try to be there in the summer, say June.

My wife and I seem to have pretty much the same interests and we had an awesome time in Spain. We spent a week in San Sebastian and a week in Barcelona and pretty much spent the focus of the trip on eating and walking about. You also can't beat Barcelona for the art and it is right on the beach. We spent some time in Madrid as well but it didn't have as great a time there, maybe because we did a bit more touristy kinds of things like the Museums. We didn't bike while there but both places seemed really bike friendly.

A thread about places with good food, moderate climate and an affinity for bikes should really not be allowed to get this far without a mention of France. From your more detailed description I would suggest a smaller city than Paris that makes it relatively easy to escape to countryside. Perhaps somewhere like Strasbourg, Montpellier or Toulouse.

I used to live in Frankfurt. It is not great for cycling. The traffic is dangerous and there are often no cycling paths. If you are happy to stay out of town somewhat, though, some of the surrounding villages have nice forests for cycling through. I would recommend anywhere in the Netherlands or Scandinavia. If Copenhagen is too expensive, try a smaller Danish town: Aarhus is nice, as is Aalborg. I just spent a week in Nijmegen in the Netherlands and LOVED cycling around the region for hours at a time. The market was good for food. Nijmegen (and probably other Dutch towns) has a cycle hire place at the trainstation. It cost me 50 Euro for a week. Paris is lovely for markets etc, but cycling in traffic is really hairy. I kept feeling like I was going to die at any moment, especially on roundabouts. It's also less flat than your other options. On the other hand there's a great system where you buy a cheapish membership card, and then can use bicycles all over the city for free as long as you return them within half an hour. That's usually plenty of time to get from one place to the next, and the bicycles were high quality and in good repair. If you want to keep the bike for longer than half an hour, you have to pay a little extra, but it still works out cheaper than using the metro.