Interesting Numbers

source
2005-Fixie bubble inflated!
2009-Pop!
2010-Enter Landlords Cycling blog. US cycling will never be the same.
2012-I bought a new bike
2013– Blog goes offline…
2014– Fat bikes suck! Lol. I hate fat bikes. No offense to anyone who rides them on a snowy mountain or on a desert or whatever. Total Offense to everyone who rides them on a bike path.

Hey look at this:

“The National Bicycle Dealers Association (NBDA) recently published a report that really brings this to light. It focused on the continuing decline of bicycling and bicycle sales in the U.S. for the past 12 to 14 years. In 2000, 43.1 million people rode bicycles six or more days which is 148 riders per thousand population; by 2014 this had declined to 35.6 million or 111 riders per thousand[2].”

Except in the city. Cuz I have to avoid more people on bikes every day. I think. What do I know? is it really just my perception? Where do these numbers come from? Does the NBDA go to North Philly and ask everyone who rides bikes?

I’m sure if you check into a downtown, gentrified, neighborhood the number would be up. But not for little kids i guess. Just people with beards. Haha I’m just kidding. A couple of people that like bikes don’t have beards.

Hey do you think all the old bike mustache dudes are pissed that all these young, artisan/designer/bespoke yuppie type dudes have tricky mustaches now?

That’s the industry question we really want answered.

Why do I care about this in any way?

I don’t really.
but…

I heard this guy on NPR talking about hoverboards and how hot hoverboards are for the youth. He said bike sales were on the decline and skateboards were no longer a cultural force. It sounded like a micro-aggression against action sports from a nerd.

I just wanted to know about the bikes.

It doesn’t seem like the numbers changed that much for adults except in 2005.

11.9 million new adult bikes sold in 2000, 12.4 million sold in 2014.

So maybe they just mean kid’s bikes. The above chart includes kid’s bikes with numbers going back to 1992.

On first inspection-2014 is down 2.9 million bikes from 2000. That seems real bad.

But then look at where it starts in 1992 and only 15.3 million bikes new bikes sold. That must have sucked.

It drops down below 16 a couple times before 1998. I guess Team Motorola just couldn’t sell bikes.

So anyway

in 1994 there were 16.7 million new bikes sold.
in 2014 there were 18 million new bikes sold.

The low point over those years was in 2009 with 14.9 million sold. (But in 2010 the number jumps way up to 19.8 million)

The highest number reached is in 2000 with 20.9 million new bikes sold. Go Lance! USA USA EPO EPO This is what everyone is basing the “decline” theory on-one year where sales spiked. It’s why everyone reporting this keeps saying “14 year decline” instead of “10 year decline”.

(Hey if Lance has to pay money back to Trek, Nike, USPS, etc they should have to pay it back to every consumer-idiot Lance maniac who bought a yellow jersey and a trek. I mean seriously. The idea that his sponsors weren’t down with the program-Yeah right. Strange world we live in where the buyer has to beware and the corporations are protected.)

18 million falls about evenly between those high and low numbers.

These millions excludes the used bike market, ebay, craigslist etc.

320 million new bikes sold over the last 18 years.

so…

I don’t get the thing where people talk about how the “bike industry” is in decline.

I’d agree that there are to many bike shops.

Maybe its just a trick to get them to buy “gravel” and “adventure” bikes.

“Look out bike shop owners the market is on a steady decline! Better stock up on gravel, adventure and fat bikes to sell to your customers that already have road, cross, touring, bmx, transport, commuter and MTBs! Diversify! Its the only way to stay in business!”

-From someone not in the “bike industry” in anyway.

Q: Hey what’s the difference between a gravel bike, an adventure bike and a cross bike?
A: Nothing but you totally need all three..

sike.
(After you buy all that shit you realize you just want a MTB.)

Instead buy a 30 year old road bike that can fit 28’s on it and almost ride it off a cliff.

There’s some gravel adventure for you.