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Old June 2nd 19, 03:30 PM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
AMuzi
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Default Bicycle statistics

On 6/1/2019 7:01 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 6/1/2019 4:46 PM, wrote:
On Saturday, June 1, 2019 at 9:42:59 AM UTC-5, sms wrote:
On 6/1/2019 3:02 AM,
wrote:
On Saturday, June 1, 2019 at 2:22:45 AM UTC+2,
wrote:
On Friday, May 31, 2019 at 2:48:36 PM UTC-5, AK wrote:

Average age of a bicyclist killed on US roads:
45 (36 in 2002)


Disregarding the "killed" part, this brings up a
question about the demographics of bicycling today.
Are all bicyclists getting older? Is bicycling
becoming an older person activity? Are youngsters not
taking up cycling? I have friends with children in the
late teens and 20s age groups. Some of the kids do
ride bikes. But others, their kids do not ride. Yet
they ride lots and lots. I know on this forum some
people say their children or one child does ride. But
how many on this forum have children who do not ride
ever? Yet they do.

All kids in the Netherlands ride a bicycle at least up
to 18 years when they allowed to drive a car. Most of
the times they can't affort a car at that age so the
ride until they earn some money. After that they only
ride recreational or when it is more practical/faster.

"Back in my day" we didn't get driven around everywhere,
it was just
unthinkable that we would even ask to be driven somewhere
fairly close
to our homes. We rode our bikes. Maybe if it was pouring
rain our
parents would drive us. The times I was driven to
elementary school,
about four blocks away were rare.

In the city I'm in now, it's extremely rare for an
elementary school
student to ride a bike to school. It's still fairly
common in middle
school and high school, but not at the level it should
be. Traffic
around schools is insane─even though most students
could walk or ride a
bike, they are driven, and sometimes it's only one block.



I'm not really talking about "kids" riding bikes during
elementary, middle, or high school. I mean young adults.
Or "kids" as I think of them, unfortunately. Younger
people. Is bicycling, recreational, fun bicycling,
becoming an older and older person activity? Are fewer
and fewer young people doing the activity? Thus making
the average age of the cyclist older and older.


I think that's the case, sadly. I think a huge chunk of
American's dedicated cyclists are still the ones that took
it up during the early 1970s "bike boom" when it was trendy.
(Fashion is powerful.) Those people are now in their 60s,
perhaps 70s.

It's not 100%, of course. We have a new young couple living
next door and they've got some very nice road bikes. OTOH,
they have a new little kid, so they won't be doing a lot of
riding for a while.



So bicycles are basically skateboards for old people?

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971


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