The year 2024 marked another low point for the cycling industry, as bicycle sales — already on a downward trajectory since 2022 — continued to plummet, with numbers falling to the lowest they’ve ever been in 50 years, according to a new report by the Bicycle Association (BA).
The report, published by the national trade association for the UK cycle industry today, revealed that the total number of bicycles sold in the country last year was only 1.45 million units, a 2.4 per cent fall from 2023.
2023 already saw the fewest bicycle sales since 1985, with 1.55 million units sold. In 2022, sales had shrunk by 22 per cent as the industry entered its decline phase following the pandemic bike boom of 2020 and 2021.
However, 2024’s sales figures now present a new low. The last time the sector sold so few cycles in the UK was in the early 1970s, according to Forbes journalist Carlton Reid.
> 2023 saw the worst bicycle sales in the UK since 1985, reveals Bicycle Association report
“2024 saw a further decline in the cycling market, with sales down minus two per cent versus 2023, continuing the long post-COVID downturn which began in the second half of 2021,” the BA noted in a press release.
Sales of both mechanical and electric bicycles decreased in 2024. The former’s volume fell by four per cent, and e-bikes’ market volume also decreased by five per cent to reach an estimated 146,000 units, representing nine per cent of overall bike units. This was despite average selling prices of e-bikes plummeting amid particularly heavy discounting.
Sales of children’s cycles also fell and are now around a third less than pre-Covid levels, with 21 per cent of those between five and 16 years of age riding a bike, according to Sport England.
There was one silver lining in the form of ‘enthusiast sales’, with higher priced road and mountain bikes showing year-on-year volume growth, the BA noted.
Another positive takeaway, according to the organisation, was that the rate of annual decline began to ease in 2024 compared with previous years, with market performance stabilising during the second half after a tough first half.
Nevertheless, the BA said that it expects the market to remain challenging in 2025. It added: “With the backdrop of a difficult macroeconomic climate, it predicts the long downturn will gradually bottom out over the coming months with forecasted volume growth in bike and PAC of two per cent and three per cent in services in 2025. E-bikes volumes, however, are expected to fall a further one per cent.”
Simon Irons, Bicycle Association Data & Insights Director, said: “This report is a challenging read. The post-Covid overstocking, and associated heavy discounting levels in the market, persist and our industry still has a real challenge to restore margins and increase value. The continued decline in kids’ cycling participation and kids’ bike sales is particularly concerning, given these are our cyclists of the future.”
The bike industry has been facing a turbulent period since the post-pandemic boom faded, initially struggling with cash flow and inventory issues and then being plagued by plummeting sales.
New information from the BA’s 2024 Market Data report means that every year in the last three years has marked a new low in terms of sales in the 21st century.
2025, however, could potentially bring some sunshine to the constant doom and gloom nestled over the industry — a sentiment shared by the BA in its report as well.
In June last year, CONEBI, an umbrella organisation which represents national bike industry associations across Europe, told the bike industry “survive until 2025” as the overstock issues that have plagued the cycling industry over the past few years could be resolved by 2025.
96 thoughts on “UK bike sales plummet to early 1970s levels and were lower than any other year this century in 2024, reveals Bicycle Association report”
It took most of 2024 and part
It took most of 2024 and part of 2025 for the gravel bike I ordered to arrive.
Nothing seems to be in stock.
Are sales low because it
Are sales low because it seems like every other bike retailer is closing? So sales are low because people can’t buy bikes (rather than because they don’t want to)?
And how much has price
And how much has price inflation reduced affordability?
That is true, too.
That is true, too.
Accessories too – simple things like bags are SO much more expensive. And unless you really pay attention, it’s easy to overlook just by how much stuff has increased in price.
Bluntly sales are low because
Bluntly sales are low because nobody is buying.
The “boom” around COVID in 2020-21 basically pulled forward thousands of bike sales which otherwise would either not have been made, or would have been made at some point in the future.
So essentially everyone who wanted a bike now has one.
Once lockdown ended and the quiet roads and good weather came to an end and we all went back to normal life, most of the bikes stopped being ridden.
Combined with a perfect storm of over-stocking in the belief the boom was the new norm, plus cost of living crisis etc etc, means there are too many un-sold bikes in the market and a niche cottage industry reliant on discretionery consumer spend is f%@&ked!
In the UK at least there are too many brands and too many retailers, and not enough riders.
It will get better but I think the shape of the industry in the UK will be different. Already we have no Wiggle/CRC, have lost many LBS and the customer now expects a discount all the time.
Also, the bike people bought
Also, the bike people bought then was sold to them as the N+1 killer – marketing has been all around how a gravel bike is the one bike you need. So now you’ve got one, you dont need another.
Too many unsold bikes of the
Too many unsold bikes of the kind not many people want though?
My gravel bike took close to a year to become available. Racks and bags have still not arrived. New helmet on back order.
Anecdotal / n = 1 and all that but I have the savings to buy £3,500 of bike, accessories, clothing and equipment – no one has it in stock or is able to sell it me.
Abdoujaparov wrote:
Exactly, and while that might be bad for the bike manufacturing/selling industry, it doesn’t automatically correlate to a problem for the cycling industry. Conversely, high rates of bike theft could boost the business of bike shops, at least in the short term, but it’s not good for cyclists.
If people have bikes they are happy with, and don’t need to buy a new bike because the one they have is still in good condition – that’s a good thing for cyclists. That some underloved bikes became available via the bike maintenance and recyling shops is a good thing for those of us who cycle and especially those with an interest in reducing waste.
I’m riding an old second hand bike, which I am looking to replace, but when I do I aim to get something second hand from the local Bike Hub which is part-social enterprise. I doubt the sale will count on the official sales figures.
No great surprise really when
No great surprise really when an entry level road bike costs the thick end of a grand with Sora kit. That’s not entry level money, and people don’t have it to spare. When I got back into cycling as an adult I bought whatever the B’Twin entry level model was, which had a 3200 group set and was £250. And it was a great bike, it got me riding and ended up in me investing a lot more in an upgrade a few years later.
Not only has the £199 decent
Not only has the £199 decent entry level hybrid gone – at my local bike shop there are a smattering of bikes c £500 (kids and adult, mainly hybrid and MTB) then a void until you hit the £2000 mark where it’s a smattering of adult road and gravel – everything between these price points is on back order. On the other hand if you fancy a £5000 bike it’s in stock and ready to go; no discount.
C3a wrote:
I have to disagree, a quick visit to the websites of Halfords and Decathlon reveals dozens of bikes of all types & ages, many discounted and in stock at a local branch, priced between £500 and £2000. The whole “no cheap bikes” thing is a myth. There are also many examples at other places of >£5k bikes on sale with heavy discounts if you go looking.
It depends on what you define
It depends on what you define as cheap or affordable, some may see that £500 is small change, but too many people today in the UK are living payday to payday, with no savings to dip into so that £500 is not going on a bike, it paying for a place to live – food – heating – keeping the lights on and geting to work and back!
60kg lean keen climbing
I was using £500-2000 as the benchmark example given by the previous poster, where they indicated that there were few bikes available in that price range, and nothing discounted above £5k.
It does not matter what price
It does not matter what price bikes start at, the retailers can discount all they want, but the economy is not working for too many people in the UK. Yes if you are buying a bike to replace a car or to reduce train – bus fare as a mode of transport for example then those bikes will shift at the right price as people can reason the cost but a bike for a hobby as a something to ride for the pure joy, now you tell your beloved no food or holiday (you fill in the blanks) I going to buy a new bike, It not going to wash is it! That is the problem.
60kg lean keen climbing
If somebody is in the financial situation where they have to choose whether to buy a bike or food to eat, then they don’t need to go to a bike shop. There’s a place local to me which takes in donated bikes and fixes them up, and sells them for typically £30-80. I’m sure there are many other similar places and charities in other towns.
https://www.dorsetecho.co.uk/news/23872886.danny-bike-man-recycling-donated-bikes-weymouth/
Just got back from my local
Just got back from my local recycle and reuse place to buy a bike for my granddaugher, £5 it cost Me, they have lots of bikes. The palce does well, it was busy today, so many people are aware and do use. The point still stands that without the uplift and positive vibie that people have around money today and into the future they will not be buying bikes at the price points and in the way – amounts that they used to.
Absolutely, I just don’t
Absolutely, I just don’t think people look hard enough for lower cost bikes. Or they set unreasonable limits, like must be Di2 or carbon frame etc.
I’ve never paid more than 1k for any bike I’ve owned and I’m on my 4th in 25 years
Decathlon particularly have
Decathlon particularly have some superb machines for under £1000, the RC 520 with 105 for £899.99 stands out.
I know many of us on this website spend a lot more than most people on bikes but there is a strange resistance in general in the UK to spending money on bikes, with £500 being seen by many people as outrageous even though that’s money that can be recouped in a couple of months or less of bike commuting. I’m frequently told that £500 “on a pushbike” is stupid by people who’ll probably spend that and more on golf clubs every year, let alone golf club membership, whose car costs more than that every time they go for a service, who think nothing of spending that amount per person on a weekend break… I know there are lots of people feeling the pinch at the moment who can’t afford to spend a lot on bikes, but there are also a lot of people who are simply stuck with the idea from about 1982 that £100 should be more than enough to get you a decent bike.
I just did a check on a
I just did a check on a Carrera Subway 2; currently on sale (£312) – Halford’s says out of stock in my size and nothing until July.
C3a wrote:
Well, they have plenty in my size, to collect from my local branch as early as next week.
The current best bargain right now has got to be these Felt VR60 road bikes from Merlin for £379:
https://www.merlincycles.com/felt-vr-60-claris-road-bike-2021-boxed-325713.html
My brother bought one a couple of weeks ago, and it was boxed so I had to build it for him (and it was set up with front brake left, rear brake right so I also had to recable the brakes), but even if it had to be assembled at a shop for say, £60 labour, it’s still a great bike for the money.
Decathlon today have a load
Decathlon today have a load of good entry level road bikes under £500. Some are only just over £300 with wide ratio cassettes and a carbon fork.
Depressing reading,
Depressing reading, particularly childrens bikes. The people reading this forum like have expensive ‘hobby’ bikes but these figures also reflect people’s transport choices.
webbierwrex wrote:
Speak for yourself.
Some of us ride cheap secondhand bikes – to work, into town and longer rides at the weekend. Even my ‘nice’ bike is a 9-speed alloy Trek that would have cost £600 new in 2016 (I paid half that for a barely-ridden bike a year later).
But I agree that it is especially disheartening to hear about the low sales of kids’ bikes; and of course there’s the sad demise of Islabikes (though the ever-resourceful Isla is still selling parts from a tiny workshop near Ludlow at https://www.islabikes.co.uk/).
The stats seem confusing in
The stats seem confusing in isolation, the 70s was an era when lots of people had bikes, and fewer cars. So does that mean recently bike sales were massively greater than 50 years ago and are now returning to that norm whilst ignoring an even bigger dip in sales 20-30 years ago ? Or what exactly ?
another aspect of this is
another aspect of this is that the rise of the electric scooter and hire bikes (certainly in london) means that older kids are less likely to be using bikes and certainly the upfront cost, compared to smaller daily costs and no need to maintain a bike either. The competition has changed and transport options have increased.
And no need to worry that it
And no need to worry that it will get nicked.
In 1981 I bought a bike from
In 1981 I bought a bike from Halfords that cost £115. Today, that is the equivalent of £670. Yet a bike of that value today is considerably better than the one I bought in 1981.
But what I cannot understand, when I watch The Motorbike show with Henry Cole, the standard of motorbikes (materials/technology/complexity) you can buy new for less than the cost of a Pinarello F Di2, I just don’t understand how these bikes cost so much. And some of the motorbike manufacturers featured are not Honda or Suzuki, they are smaller low volume producers.
I just don’t think enough is
I just don’t think enough is being done to encourage cycling – poor infrastructure, daft cycle lanes (there are some good ones, but a lot of the time, there are cars parked, buses, they are filthy with road debris, and you might get one for 500m, then it disappears for the next 500 before it reappears again) – all in all, nothing to encourage the casual cyclist to use bikes more for pleasure, exercise or commuting.
At the height of covid in 2020/2021 at times we had 10 people on a morning ride – there were a couple of roadies, but mostly people with sub £200 mountain/hybrid bikes – all with front suspension, fat tyres – probably weighing in excess of 15kg. At the time, with quiet roads and going stir crazy at home (not to mention how good the weather was), it was easy to get people out…but today, at least 8 of those people aren’t riding anymore, no motivation, and nothing as mentioned in my first paragraph to encourage them. The problem I see is not being able to convince people to change or upgrade their bikes – many have seemingly fine bikes lying in a garage or shed, so why would you upgrade to a £500 bike if you’re not using what you’ve got.
I’m on my 3rd bike since 2017 (have traded in and benefited from cycle to work price dynamics along the way), but in the grand scheme of things make a very small percentage of the population. So I’m valuable to the bike companies, but really don’t make a dent into the overall state of the bike economy. I think bike companies need to find a sweet spot – is that £500 to £1000, and market high quality affordable bikes, invest in more community groups and activities – the only way to sell more bikes, is to make riding more attractive, and get more people out there – then you can work on strategies to upsell to the groups that want to take things up a notch.
ShreyC wrote:
How can you say that?! For decades now (well, about once every couple of decades) UK Governments have been “encouraging cycling” as hard as they can! With warm words, with “I’ve been on a bike ride once so anyone can”, with photo opportunities… Sometimes even with fractions of pennies in the motoring pound!
And councils have build cycle infra – well, painted or signed it anyway. At least – where they can – wherever it would not conflict with “maximum capacity for drivers” and “won’t cause ‘disruption’ “. And “where it makes sense” – apparently only where people don’t want to go, except for pedestrians for recreation, as long as they’re not likely to be routes local worthies esteem!
How much more could we do – after all, most people don’t cycle! Doing more would be unfair to most people (who walk or drive)!
Meanwhile, where places they managed to get the process started…[Paris] [Seville] [Oulu]…
TBF I think sports cycling is always going to be a niche (that’s true in NL as well – although they certainly cater for leisure cycling).
Why do you suggest that it
Why do you suggest that it matters to “cycling” whether or not people can be convinced to buy new bikes? Clearly that matters to manufacturers, but why would anyone else care? And even if they did, those replaced bikes just pass into other hands, and prevent a different sale.
Two of my bikes were originally built about forty years ago, others are one or two decades old, and I recently restored and passed-on a 1958 bike to a man who was completely chuffed to adopt it.
Why would anyone except bicycle manufacturers consider those bikes somehow lesser, or less important?
Part of the problem for bike manufacturers is that, unless one is racing at a serious level, a quality frame built anytime in the past half-century is just as good as a new one, and can be obtained for about the cost of a dinner. Those manufacturers are working on implementing planned obsolescence through changing standards, electrification. and marketing, but their success has been limited so far — so there are just millions upon millions of bicycles out there, most of which are completely suitable for every use short of professional racing.
In the US, for example, there are about 120M cyclists, and we buy about 20M bicycles annually. Most bicycles that aren’t abused will last far longer than 6 years, so that naturally leads to a product glut over time.
dh700 wrote:
Fixed that for you, again.
https://velo.outsideonline.com/news/study-103-7-million-americans-ride-bikes/
30% of the “cyclists” aged 3+ rode a bike fewer than five days a year; no wonder they don’t need to replace their machines very often.
Rendel Harris wrote:
https://velo.outsideonline.com/news/study-103-7-million-americans-ride-bikes/
30% of the “cyclists” aged 3+ rode a bike fewer than five days a year; no wonder they don’t need to replace their machines very often.— Rendel Harris
Wrong again.
https://momentummag.com/more-americans-are-riding-bicycles-than-ever-before-report-states/
And your latest pathetic and failed attempt at wasting everyone’s time with pedantry also misses the point — those cyclists each need a bicycle, regardless of how often they ride it.
Please stop embarrassing yourself with such garbage.
In particular, if you are going to try and be pedantic, use research that isn’t eleven years old.
dh700 wrote:
OK, I’ll use your own “research”, from your own link:
Exactly what I said previously. Stop making a fool of yourself.
Rendel Harris wrote:
Did you imagine that you made a point there? Read the thread. The point was the number of cyclists, and the number of cyclists is around 120M — your pathetic attempt to quote outdated research notwithstanding. ( it is well documented that low-income Americans very often cycle for transport, and are typically hugely undercounted in all such surveys — for many of the same reasons that such people are invisble to policymakers in many areas ).
The more dig, the deeper your hole gets, unsurprisingly.
If the cycling infrastructure
If the cycling infrastructure was built to the same standard as the roads designed for cars and larger vehicles, I would be encouraged to use it. Thankfully, I have been cycling long enough (60+ years) to have the confidence to use London’s roads. Therefore, when I ride to Sainsburys, for example, I can do one mile uninterrrupted on the road. The adjacent cycle path has 9 give-way points; 2 bus stops; 2 utility cupboards ; 1 litter bin (I have not counted the trees!). The riding surface is uneven and contains debris of all sorts. I will ride for a long as I am able, but I am not convinced the current cycling infrastructure will encourage others to do the same.
This is why the solution to
This is part of why the solution to the problem is not attempting to build separate infrastructures for each type of vehicle that appears, but rather it is enforcing the extant laws that require road users to cooperate and share that public space — in particular, those that require motor vehicle operators to exercise caution and not, under any circumstances, kill and maim other road users.
This is where the entire focus of everyone concerned with road safety ought to be — not on wasting time, money, and lives on pursuing hopeless construction-based strategies that have yet to be successful anywhere on this planet.
“Separate but equal” will never be the latter, and where infrastructure is concerned, it won’t be the former, either.
It must be all the police…
It must be all the police… or maybe they’re all just brave but incredibly foolish (for choosing to accept such inequality! … because they haven’t realised they’ve pursued a hopeless construction-based strategy for 50+ years, leading to massive waste of lives!) Oh no – the madness is spreading!
Fools to themselves these
Fools to themselves these people, just because something quite obviously works they think…um…that it works. Chumps.
Rendel Harris wrote:
If it works, why is the Dutch cyclist fatality rate approximately triple that of the United States’?
( 280 fatalities among ~10M Dutch cyclists, versus 900 fatalities from 120M American cyclists — using averages from the past few years. )
dh700 wrote:
Oh dear me. Average distance ridden by Dutch cyclists per year, 800km+. Average distance ridden by American cyclists per year, less than 50km. Deaths per billion miles cycled in the Netherlands, 15. Deaths per billion miles cycled in the USA, 45. US cyclist fatalities are in fact three times higher than in the Netherlands, not three times lower. Are you Donald Trump?
Same school of rhetoric
Same school of rhetoric perhaps.
I’m surprised nobody’s cited the moon’s great road traffic safety record – there’s certainly driving there but no cycle infra – yet zero cycling fatalities! Explain that!
Really, if they’re simply concerned about safety they should be demanding UK traffic policies *! The UK still has one of the best overall road safety rates for a developed country. Of course – we’ve done than by literally driving people off the roads AND as part of this making it *much* less convenient for cyclists and pedestrians ** – all in the name of safety!
* Don’t copy the UK, we don’t even have a coordinated road safety concept like “Sustainable Safety”.
** From a US perspective of course that may sound ridiculous – many otherwise walkable / cycleable places there are lacking *pedestrian* infra never mind cycle infra!
chrisonabike wrote:
That’s not ridiculous at all. We know how to solve this problem, because it has already been done. Japan has next to no dedicated infrastructure of any type, yet has the safest roads in the wold for pedestrians and cyclists.
How?
They enforce their traffic laws, and send persons who hit pedestrians or cyclists with their car to jail, pretty much without exception.
Rendel Harris wrote:
No one has ever tracked American cyclist mileage to any significant precision.
50km is a comically low guess. That would total 6 billion km nationally. Just 10M slightly-serious cyclists would achieve that total by riding only 600 km annually — even if the other 110M cyclsts managed to combine for zero miles. So that’s clearly impossible. There are almost a million bicycle commuters alone, who cover ~25% of that 6B number just by commuting.
Also, for cultural and political reasons, the Dutch routinely exaggerate their cycling statistics ( https://www.dutchnews.nl/2021/09/cycling-injuries-three-times-more-than-official-figures/ ). For example, they like to claim 15.5 billion annual km, which equates to about 15.5 million cyclists — from a population of only 18M. Meanwhile, when that population is actually surveyed, about 40% of them report not cycling, and in fact, not having access to a bicycle.
Neither country has sufficiently accurate mileage statistics available to attempt the calculation that you suggest. But we can determine that the Netherlands sees ~28 fatalities per million cyclists annually, compared to just ~8 per million in the US.
So we still lack an explanation for why US cyclists are so much safer than the Dutch.
We also lack an explanation for why Dutch cyclist fatalities have increased by ~50 percent over the past decade or so. Are they tearing up those cycle tracks?
dh700 wrote:
Ah, I see you’ve moved on from attempting to manipulate statistics (every American who rides a bicycle once a year is a cyclist) to downright lying in order to try to support your absurd contentions. In fact 16% of Dutch people say they do not own a bicycle (this does not of course mean that they do not cycle, given the immense popularity of bike hire schemes). 40% of Dutch people report that cycling is not their primary mode of transport, not that they never cycle. Anyone who’s ever been to the Netherlands or spoken with Dutch people can plainly see the assertion that nearly half of them don’t have access to a bicycle for the desperate lie it is. The fact that you have to resort to such utter rubbish demonstrates how risibly weak your arguments are.
Rendel Harris wrote:
And then moved straight past that to being personally abusive about their interlocutors – the knockdown argument to end all knockdown arguments…
mdavidford wrote:
Go ahead and cite that.
Maybe you were confusing me with the people who are insulting me, because they are unable to formulate any counterarguments that comport with reality?
But clearly parody / defend
But clearly parody / defend the indefensible for the exercise, no? Lengthy pedantry with complaints about others wasting time, getting into the weeds but with clear inaccuracies?
There are some interesting stories to explore beyond the bare facts since eg. if we reduce “road safety” to a single casualty number – or even subdivide it slightly – an *odd* group of places emerges at the top. Though mostly “(northern) europe” except Japan.
Even just for European examples – all kinds of different things feed into this. (Reaching into history and even – in things like infra – political organisation eg. the different bodies, how they relate and how they’re held accountable.)
But that is definitely the stuff of (very) long-form, not a comment thread!
Anyway, apparently this one started being about bike sales in the UK…?
Rendel Harris wrote:
I’m just reporting what the survey found. I’ll dig up the reference if I have time later. And yes, every single person who rides a bicycle is a cyclist. You can stop any time with that one, which is one of your more assinine remarks here.
Yet another ridiculous claim, evidencing a complete failure to understand basic concepts like statistics. Speaking with a few Dutch people does not constitute a statistically-valid sampling of the population.
And, as a matter of fact, my company is owned by a Dutch conglomerate, so I have and do speak with Dutch people on the regular. About half of them do not ride.
dh700 wrote:
Hilarious, speaking with a few Dutch people (in fact I have a number of Dutch friends and have spent a considerable amount of time visiting in the Netherlands; I also spent five years of my childhood living next door in Belgium so I probably know rather more about the habits of people in those countries than you do) means nothing but apparently you talking to a few Dutch colleagues is some sort of proof. It’s quite extraordinary that you claim that 120 million Americans are cyclists on the basis that they cycle a minimum of once a year, but when it’s known that 62% of Dutch people cycle at least once a week you claim that 40% of the Dutch population never cycle, not even one ride a year, and don’t own a bike. Surely even you can see how ridiculous you’re making yourself look? Do please produce this research which conveniently you don’t have time to reference that shows this 40% figure you claim to be true.
The figures analysed from
The figures analysed from 2023 here show that – if you took a small sample of Dutch people – you might find ones that didn’t cycle. There are variations; if those people come from the countryside and have lots of cars they are less likely to cycle. Also IIRC some studies show that above the very poorest, the working class tend to drive more in NL. (Perhaps because “tradespeople” or having to travel between less-well-served by public transport places, or that cars more strongly equate with social status, IDK?)
Not really a surprise but apparently:
People who live in areas with a (very) strong or moderate level of urban development cycle relatively more than people in areas with a low level of urban development or non-urban areas (see Figure 16). This is partly due to the distances to the destinations, which are generally shorter in urban areas than elsewhere.— Netherlands Institute for Transport Policy Analysis
But also there are variations which may be due to regional (political) choices?
More “presentation” versions of Dutch cycling figures (with links to primary sources) here: 2018, 2023 (with more of a focus on “safety”).
Rendel Harris wrote:
Hey look, Harris is figuring out what “statistically significant” means. Cool — hopefully I won’t have to explain it to you next time.
Oh right, “it’s known”.
While I look for the aforementioned source, here’s another one that calls into serious question many of the Dutch statistics that “are known”. It turns out that the Dutch cycle frequently — but they travel almost no where. 1.2km. A distance that, in most countries, no one is going to bother hauling out a bike — and risking its theft — to travel, they’ll just walk. Especially since the Dutch ride so slowly that door-to-door, walking is barely slower.
https://www.peopleforbikes.org/news/best-kept-secret-dutch-biking-dutch-hardly-bike
At least I didn’t have to have the concept of statistical significence explained to me, like you did. Or need it repeatedly explained that a “cyclist” is a person who cycles. Or that 50km is an absurdly-low guess at the average annual mileage for just about any national group of cyclists. Or any one of about 50 other comments you’ve made, apparently with the sole purpose of wasting everyone’s time.
chrisonabike wrote:
Now investigate, as I’m pretty sure I’ve told you previously, how frequently those Dutch cyclists die.
They average 280 cyclist deaths annually, from a tiny population that rides incredibly short distances at slow speeds — per their official statistics.
In other words, as I said, that infrastructure does not work to improve safety.
It’s strange, you don’t
It’s strange, you don’t appear to have ever suggested that we should make things safer for *drivers* by removing all that expensive motor infra… or do you feel that perhaps that’s not a fair comparison because fewer would drive? 🤔
Y’know, I *also* hope to die on my bike * – but not under a motor vehicle.
Instead I’d like to improve my chances of doing so by having an environment which encourages me to actually cycle (can only die on my bike if I’m on it). Indeed one where I might feel comfortable doing so into an advanced age – when I’m more likely just to die whatever I’m doing.
And I’m far more likely to have a bad outcome just by falling off my bike when elderly **.
Of course, if I was driving *I* might be safer personally when I made age-related errors – but I might drive into someone else (or a house). Or I could just stay at home… but I think overall that would lead to worse health outcomes while alive (certainly averaged over population).
* I’m not in a hurry.
** I’ve injured myself falling off on roads, but not yet on cycle infra. I’d definitely prefer to fall off on the latter – it would hurt about the same but my chances of bonus injury from motor vehicles are drastically reduced.
chrisonabike wrote:
First of all, I never suggested removing infrastructure — I said that building it is pointless, and has never yet improved safety anywhere on the planet. From an environmental standpoint, tearing it out is questionably worthwhile. From a safety standpoint, it ought to be removed, because it sends precisely the wrong message to motor vehicle operators, which is that they own the roads. They do not.
Second, you brushed up against the best argument against attempting to build dedicated cycling infrastructure, which is that it does absolutely nothing to improve the safety lot of motor vehicle occupants or pedestrians. Using US numbers because they are convenient to me, those two classes of road users die vastly more often than cyclists — 50k occupants, 6k pedestrians, and 900 cyclists on rough average. On the other hand, correcting road user behavior benefits everyone — even wildlife, potentially.
Sounds great. Let’s fix the actual problem then, and not screw around pouring completely ineffectual concrete and paint — which are among the worst activities we can find, from an environmental standpoint.
The entire problem, is road user behavior. We can fix that. We know how to do it. We just have to decade that we want to — and get law enforcement off their indolent duffs, which I do recognize is easier said than done, but still possible.
Your country, like mine, already has roads that go damn near everywhere, and which are perfectly suitable for any sort of vehicle, or walking. The one and only problem is that some of the people who use those roads refuse to operate their vehicles legally and safely on those roads. Let’s fix that problem. Then we instantly have bike routes everywhere! You can ride to any shop you want, any office you want, any ocean that you want. That’s the goal, innit?
Then we can spend billions of whatevers on whatevers else we need or want — better schools, lower taxes, whatever. Then we can skip the environmental damage of millions of acres of concrete and paint. Then when someone invents a new vehicle type in 20 years, we don’t have to have this same conversation all over again. Then we can stop contributing to an “us vs them” culture war, and stop fighting with shop owners over whether or not a bike lane will shutter their business.
We’ve already tried construction-based strategies in a bunch of places. They don’t work at all to improve safety. They encourage strife between cyclists and everyone else. They aren’t cheap. They don’t scale.
How many times should we repeat that mistake, before at least trying the strategy that is known to be effective?
dh700 wrote:
I didn’t say you had – and you didn’t, because the idea of removing *motoring infra* and expecting better safety is silly on the face of it *.
Anyway, gives me an excuse to post some more fools I saw out today. I did try telling them some person on the internet had clearly demonstrated they’d be safer on the road and it would be more convenient to eg. mix it with the buses normally here or wait in the traffic then sprint to the next light **, and would save us all money just to have left an extra vehicle lane – but they weren’t having it… 😉
* Natural experiments have been provided – by the past and by some less developed places. Turns out that humans plus cars without a lot of control measures (and I’m happy to agree that police and societal pressures play a small part – just rather small in eg. Europe) kill themselves at a good rate.
And even in low-speed applications stuff like “shared space” has been tried (by many countries, NL included) and found to be neither safe nor convenient for vulnerable road users (not even particularly great for drivers).
** It’s Wester Coates in Edinburgh FWIW – busy during rush hour and when there is an event on.
“Quick – get onto the road
“Quick – get onto the road and call for the police – it’s the only way to avoid a crash! Infra doesn’t work you know!” (Link to the Roseburn to the Canal path).
chrisonabike wrote:
Please do not adopt Harris’ habit of just wasting everyone’s time with nonsense. His comments are such unremitting garbage that I will soon have to stop even responding to them, as they are a complete waste of even the minimal energy required to transmit and display them.
The point you have missed is that it is not “motoring infra” — it is just infrastructure. It is supposed to be used by all vehicle types, and the one and only reason that such does not presently work as well as it ought to, is — again — road user behavior.
So let’s fix the actual problem.
Again, not what I said. Cyclists are not necessarily safer on the road, they just are not safer on dedicated cycling infrastructure. This point has been proven so many times that I am frankly shocked that the alleged cycling experts here seem to remain totally unaware of it.
And again, such a configuration is no worse than dedicated cycling infrastructure in any location on this planet where it has yet been tried. Especially including the Netherlands, where they’ve been building such for well-nigh a century now. Can you advise regarding how many centuries we should expect it to take, before all that infrastructure in the Netherlands begins to improve cyclist safety?
Also, you neglected to explain why the world’s safest roads are found in Japan — home of virtually no dedicated cycling infrastructure. How does that comport with your various theories? It does not, at all.
Finally, what, exactly, prevents a motor vehicle from using that cycle lane that you pictured — if, say, the roadway was congested or blocked, or if the motor vehicle operator just felt like doing so? Absolutely nothing except fear of law enforcement. So let’s apply that same concept to preventing motor vehicle operators from driving dangerously everywhere — and save billions, and save millions of acres of concrete and paint, and save years of argument over construction projects.
We know that works, so why are you opposed to it? Do you own a concrete or paint company? Do you have some other interest in seeing municpalities pursue strategies that are; expensive, ineffective, the precise opposite of future-proof, not remotely scalable, and which fuel dissent between road user groups?
It would be useful to know
It would be useful to know the exact circumstances those deaths occured in though. Were they a result of crashing with a moving motor vehicle? And to know if they didn’t occur predominantly in one age demographic. I don’t think the number alone is enough to draw the conclusion that having the two modes of transport: motor vehicles and cycles separated does not work to improve safety.
“that rides incredibly short distances at slow speeds” – during the working week when folks commute to work or to run errands, get groceries etc. , but a lot of Dutch people own a nice road bike too which they ride after work or at weekends. Quite a few of them also race. The large number of elite level road racers in the pro peloton isn’t a coincidence.
whosatthewheel wrote:
The next time such happens will be the first, anywhere on this planet. In every single case where construction-based strategies have been attempted, no safety improvement has occurred. The municpality in-question then typically pivots to the strategies that do work — reducing motor vehicle volume, speed, and lawlessness. All of which require law enforcement, and if we can enforce the laws after wasting billions on infrastructure, we can enforce the laws before wasting that money, and prevent the expenditure of same.
That’s a reference to the official Dutch cycling statistics, which quote about 2.5 km per day, at around 12 km/h on average. So whatever effect those racers have is already baked-in to those numbers.
And, by the way, what happens to those professional riders all over Europe with distressing frequency? They go on training rides outside of cities, where no cycling infrastructure exists, nor will ever be built ( e.g. on mountain roads ). And they get hit by motor vehicle operators, and killed or maimed — because we are not atempting to fix the problem of road user behavior, we are trying to apply an ineffective band-aid to a few urban streets here and there.
I don’t have them to hand but
I don’t have them to hand but IIRC Dutch cycling figures and some slicing and dicing plus analysis are available. Like our own figures it’s worth reading the notes to check exactly how they’re measuring and coding stuff of course… like everywhere really.
It’s a mystery to some but
It’s a mystery to some but not to me. The place where it’s most convenient for average folks to cycle * see the most cycling (way more than other places)… Plus given “everyone cycles” we see the usual “what happens if you throw an entire population at an activity”. eg. humans statistically make wild mistakes (imagine if they were all driving…) and old and less healthy people tend to be injured and die doing stuff simply because they’re old or less strong and healthy.
(The proper figures to talk about are “if we can make everyone a little more active, and reduce the death and injury which is inherent in allowing all kinds of humans to drive motor vehicles – what does that do overall given that eg. people will fall off their bikes and die if they cycle rather than sit at home” – compared to “if we do nothing or stuff which leads to more people driving – what does *that* do”?).
Whereas … where most people drive rather than using other modes the numbers are pretty poor per head of population / however you want to spin them.
There are some interesting conversations to be had around what makes eg. Iceland, Norway, Sweden and then Japan (and the UK not far behind) come out with a good road safety number… But we’re into detail and nuance – not Top Trumps.
Japan is a case which – once you’ve understood the detail isn’t going to transfer (very different culture AND built environment. And “the innocent have nothing to fear from the police” is unlikely to be true in a place where confessions are a feature of almost every case and the conviction rate is very high…).
The UK is not a “success” to copy – at best it’s a blind alley and sometimes I’m amazed we do so well. (Essentially “give over so much space for motoring it discourages vulnerable road users – then make it even less convenient to get about for their “safety”. After promoting driving for decades decide to run down public transport “because people will drive”. Finally no cyclists, no problem”!)
Iceland I have no idea about (perhaps like Sark or the Vatican it’s just “small enough places can be different”?), nor Sweden or Norway really, though the internet shows the latter two are implementing “infra” at a fair clip…
* Or rather – where the relative attractiveness of driving vs. active travel has been rebalanced so that e.g. short journeys by car are discouraged (still possible!) at the same time as walking – or cycling because that’s generally easier – is made more convenient?
chrisonabike wrote:
Why can the UK not enforce traffic laws like Japan does? Yes, the cultures differ, but it is not as though the United Kingdom is the Wild West — there does exist some respect for law, and enforcement thereof. Investigating, for example, intentional homicide rates, we find that the UK does fairly well on that score, and Scotland does even better. Especially compared to other large-ish countries.
Insisting on pursing a strategy that has never worked, while ignoring the one that does with a hand wave, is unproductive, to say the least. Especially when the strategies you want to pursue still require the one you’re ignoring.
I already mentioned the strategies that work, which are reductions of motor vehicle usage and lawlessness. For example, Sweden’s population has grown by about 30% in the past quarter-century, but during the same time frame, their motor vehicle miles have declined by about 10%. Cleaning up road-user behavior and reducing speed-limits in Sweden has, in fact, reduced their overall road fatalties from about 1300 annually in the Sixties ( from a population of just ~7M ) to about 200 ( from 11M now ). They still experience about 20 cyclist fatalities annually, which isn’t good in comparison to their vehicle-occupant deaths, but the across-the-board improvement in road safety has been tremendous. ( cf: https://www.itf-oecd.org/sites/default/files/sweden-road-safety.pdf )
As I mentioned previously, this is an example of why the appropriate solution here is to correct road user behavior — which benefits everyone — not focus on wasting money on ineffectual construction schemes dedicated to one vehicle type, that even theoretically only benefit one user group, and which do not scale at all, as the Dutch and others have discovered.
Sigh – would you be referring
Sigh – would you be referring to the Sweden which has been installing the same kind of separate infra as you’ll see in all the European places with high levels of cycling? (In the urban areas, where the vast majority of its population live.)
Like Malmö – https://therantyhighwayman.blogspot.com/2018/09/a-scandinavian-safari-part-4-malmo.html
(Video here https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2018/12/11/how-convenient-is-cycling-in-malmo-sweden/ )
Or Gothenburg – https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SmNOR-go-GY
(Separated space for trains, motor vehicles, pedestrians, cyclists and indeed sometimes trams. As always – mix where possible but separate where needed – eg. large disparities in speed / mass, or preponderance of one mode).
It’s not all brilliant (even Gothenburg seems more interested in doing pedestrian / public transport stuff). And Stockholm clearly has some way to go – but similar things are happening there also.
National modal share for cycling apparently around 10%, though these kind of country average figures (or even city- wide-) always need further digging.
Of course Sweden has a range of other interesting feature. While cold it’s relatively dry, and the vast majority live in the warmer south.
Then they’ve done some speed limit reduction and tried some motor traffic reduction (eg. by providing alternatives – like better public transport and … cycling space!) They’ve brought in a “Safe system” transport philosophy (“Vision zero” – but theirs does seem to be more like the Dutch “Sustainable Safety” approach rather than just a slogan).
They also have a lot of powers – including some direct money- raising – devolved to local areas and municipalities. That may be important also.
More on the organisational detail here: https://pub.nordregio.org/wp-2023-8-nordic-cycling-policy/sweden.html
chrisonabike wrote:
Sigh — is there another Sweden? Yes, that’s the one that I am referring to. And that’s the one where that cycling infrastructure has not worked to save cyclists’ lives — which is evidenced by the fact that ~10% of Sweden’s road fatalities are cyclists. Which is approximately an order of magnitude higher than the same ratio in, for example, the US, where not much of that infrastructure exists.
In other words, Sweden has made their roads vastly safer since the Sixties — but the majority of that benefit has been experienced by motor vehicle occupants, not cyclists. And that’s because the mechanism used to improve safety was not building cycle lanes, it was reducing motor vehicle traffic volumes, speeds, and lawlessness.
That should sound familiar, since its the drum I’ve been beating here for a while now.
All of the reduction in Sweden’s road fatalities predates their adoption of Vision Zero — which has made no difference whatsoever in the past decade.
Road safety has improved
Road safety has improved pretty much everywhere since the 1970s (even the US) and significantly so. In fact, lots of places show a pronounced fall in the 70s – peculiar.
I’m all for reductions in motor traffic volumes and speeds. Just like the Dutch have done! (But … that does in fact take infra, and until the internet means we don’t travel at all, alternatives to driving. And where the traffic volumes and speeds are greater e.g. distributor roads and major traffic arteries it takes separate cycling infra also)!
I still can’t work out why you aren’t simply advocating for less cycling * – or solely recreational cycling (perhaps on … separated trails)? That has historically been proved to reduce the number of cyclists dying! Perhaps they could drive instead – it would be safer for them?
You keep comparing places’ safety figures unfavourably to those from the US. Does this mean that the US has sorted “lawlessness” and that’s why all those US cyclists are so safe then? Or … could it be that compared to e.g. Sweden only a small proportion of the population is cycling? I’m not reading about the US national 10% modal cycling share for trips (what Sweden claims – again, haven’t dug their details)? But perhaps people are unstereotypically abashed about their achievement? Or – could it be that what cycling there is does in fact largely happen in places where the cars ain’t (maybe on the footways – so on … separate infra … like is common in Japan [1] [2] )?
* Road safety may have improved since the 70’s but – whether this was by reducing “lawlessness” or other factors – numbers cycling have continued to decrease. Well, in fact – that slide has slowed or even turned around in a few places. What could the reasons be for that?
** Actually Japan doesn’t look great if you take e.g. casualties by head of population for pedestrians and cyclists (e.g. this detailed and interesting analysis). There are proportionally more old people there though and it seems they may cycle more than some of the younger folks also. Perhaps when they get to those main streets they’d really benefit from some proper cycle infra? (Might be more convenient also than the narrow side lanes to go more than a short distance – although I guess more amenities are available locally in Japan?)
First off, let me say that I
First off, let me say that I recognize and appreciate that you are willing and able to have a discussion on this topic — unlike a couple other people here, who seemingly just vomit on their keyboard and hit send.
Road safety in the US has not experienced anything remotely similar to the improvement in Sweden. The latter has cut their fatalities by about 80% since the Sixties, while the former has only managed around a 10% decline from their 1970 peak.
No, such does not require “infra” dedicated to a single type of vehicle. In every country, even the spacious US, a very big chunk of trips are sufficiently short as to be very walkable and cyclable by many people. Not everyone, and not all the time, but a sufficient number to significantly reduce motor vehicle volume. The only change required is for those people to feel safe riding and walking — even better would be for them to actually be safe, and building bike lanes has never yet accomplished the latter.
Reducing speeds is almost entirely about law enforcement. That said, speeds don’t __actually__ matter, as long as road users are incentivized to not run into other road users, but that’s too complicated a topic for this forum.
Please don’t adopt Harris’ unfortunate and embarrassing habit of standing up straw men to argue against.
No, I absolutely do not mean that. I use the US for a control, because most readers are hopefully aware that high-quality dedicated cycling infrastructure in the US is rare — at best. There are maybe as much as a few thousand miles of it among the US’ 4 million miles of roads. Despite that fact, and several other important factors that are not advantegous to the US, the cyclist fatality rate in the US is — in many cases — better than in these countries which have already pursued the construction-based strategies that you are promoting.
It is very difficult to honestly claim that those construction-based strategies are effective, given the above situation.
As previously noted a bunch of times, 1 in 3 Americans cycles. I don’t have the respective number for Sweden, but that’s an order of magnitude more cyclists than Sweden’s entire population. “Mode share” is a tricky topic with respect to American cycling, because so many of its cyclists are children and other recreational cyclists, who do not make formal “trips” per most surveys. Unfortunately, that does not prevent them from being killed.
If footways were actually places where “cars ain’t” then pedestrians would not die as frequently as they do — pretty much worldwide. Unfortunately, transport is mostly a 2-dimensional situation, so even those footways have to have millions of intersections with roads, and it is at these intersections where people frequently die. Heck, it’s common in my country for drivers to smash their vehicles into buildings, bridges, trees, and all manner of objects that are typically on the other side of the sidewalk.
I commend your willingness to actually do research on the topic. The first talk was interesting, and informative. Please don’t bother citing NJB, however, as that channel is rife with complete nonsense, and thoroughly useless, as a result. I’ve gone into detail on that elsewhere, I think.
I’m sorry, I don’t follow your premise here. Where have “numbers cycling” steadily decreased?
That is an interesting analysis — quite unfortunately, whoever performed it was error-prone, to the degree that it becomes useless. In particular, the chart that you are referring to makes the following errors:
* No date is provided, so we can only guess at the data to which they refer. Publication date seems to around 2016, so this chart probably refers to roughly 10+ year-old data.
* Overstates Japan’s road fatalities by about double (!!). This chart shows around 4800 fatalities for Japan, while the actual number was closer to 2500 ( https://japantoday.com/category/national/2-678-traffic-fatalities-reported-in-2023-first-increase-in-8-years ). I really don’t need to list any more errors after that one, but I’ll continue anyway.
* Understates US fatalities by about 15%. In particular, undercounts motor vehicle occupant deaths by about 20,000 ( ! ).
* Invents an unknown class of road user called “Other”, who are not pedestrians, cyclists, vehicle occupants, or motorcyclists — and claims almost 10,000 such people were killed on US roads. Who are these people that no other study is aware of?
Those are just the ones that jumped out at me as obviously wrong, I’m sure there are many others. It’s a shame, because as you said, that analysis is very detailed — apparently too detailed for the author to keep their numbers straight. It was also produced by the people responsible for road construction in Japan, so there may exist a significant bias issue. Would not be the first time that people with an interest in construction claimed that construction saves lives, and wouldn’t be the first time some of them were wrong ( intentionally or otherwise ).
dh700 wrote:
Did you miss the bit further down the thread where Chris said this about you: “…clearly parody / defend the indefensible for the exercise, no? Lengthy pedantry with complaints about others wasting time, getting into the weeds but with clear inaccuracies?” Nice attempt to divide and conquer and posit yourself as the voice of reason rather than a vexatious troll but failed again, I’m afraid.
Still waiting on that evidence which proves that 40% of Dutch people don’t have access to a bicycle and don’t even ride one time a year, it must be jolly difficult to find. I’ve tried to help you by googling every possible permutation of that claim but funnily enough nothing shows up.
Rendel Harris wrote that
For someone who so regularly complains about people ‘wasting time’, they do seem peculiarly intent on being the one wasting the most time of all – over a third of the comments since they entered the thread are theirs.
Well it’s all about road
Well it’s all about road safety – if they’re at the keyboard that should keep them on from beginning a statistic.
Unless they’re posting while driving?
Or perhaps the encyclopedic knowledge they profess (enough to confidently dismiss numbers from pretty much any country’s own official stats, never mind those of researchers) means they’re flying everywhere – which is a very safe mode. Separated air lanes, you see 😉
mdavidford wrote:
I’m particularly interested in their latest thoughts on frame materials & properties (road.cc passim), just waiting for the thread to turn to that.
Your wish is their command,
Your wish is their command, but counterintuitively that’s actually on a thread about a frame…
I know, and I was hoping for
I know, and I was hoping for an update before deciding on more popcorn. Since when has relevance to any given topic been a thing here anyway?
Such an exercise can be
Such an exercise can be helpful, if you enjoy it in the right spirit. For example it’s a fact that most places made the greatest improvements in road safety around the 70s on (even the US, unlike their assertion – it just didn’t improve as much a others and then the numbers went in the wrong direction again).
So the reasons for that are interesting (of course the numbers were high then because growing affluence allowed expansion of mass motoring till then) … but now we have seen transport cycling drop (lower proportion of journeys cycled – safety by less exposure) and collected various other low-hanging fruit (including improved trauma response and care) … what *now* will improve things?
Rendel Harris wrote:
I thought he was talking about you — he did mention “clear inaccuracies” and those are your speciality.
But you knew exactly who I was talking about, and you proceeded to vomit on-command, as I expected.
It frankly doesn’t matter anymore, in light of the recently-posted evidence that urban Dutch only average 1.2 km per day — which makes the official national distance per year almost impossible.
In other words, you have no
In other words, you have no evidence to support your ridiculous claim that 40% of Dutch people don’t cycle even one day a year or have access to a bike, because it’s simply not true. In light of the fact that you were lying about that I don’t see why you expect anyone to take anything else you say seriously, and indeed as you can see from the response you have had on here nobody does; you are, quite rightly, regarded as something of a joke.
Just to point out how farcical your assertions are, your own link which you used to showcase the claim that Dutch people cycle 1.2km per day in cities on average also says this:
No matter where people live, it comes out to about 1.2 kilometers year after year after year. That’s three-quarters of a mile. Is this an error? I asked around for a comparable estimate at the national level. As of 2017, that estimate is 2.5 km.
2.5 km times 365 days times 18 million people comes to 16.425 billion kilometres per year, which is within 10% of the official figure, and yet again you’ve made a fool of yourself by providing evidence which proves exactly the contrary of what you claim.
Never mind all that now – do
Never mind all that now – do people have any opinion on pet-cycling-safety?
https://www.holland-cycling.com/blog/116-walking-the-dog-the-dutch-way
https://departmentfortransport.wordpress.com/2012/12/03/cycling-in-the-netherlands-picture-post-3-animals/
Rendel Harris wrote:
Now do the math after learning that ~93% of the Dutch population is urban.
https://tradingeconomics.com/netherlands/urban-population-percent-of-total-wb-data.html
How do you propose to achieve a 2.5km national average, while 93% of the population is averaging just 1.2km?
That requires every single rural cyclist of the Netherlands to ride ~22 km every single day. Which we know does not happen, from a variety of sources, and because the Dutch almost never ride more than a few kms, and rely on cars and trains for all longer trips.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/328254958_The_Relation_between_Train_Access_Mode_Attributes_and_Travelers'_Transport_Mode-Choice_Decisions_in_the_Context_of_Medium-_and_Long-Distance_Trips_in_the_Netherlands
Your own link that you posted
Your own link that you posted as evidence gave the 2.5 km figure. Perhaps you didn’t read your own evidence in your desperate and pathetic attempts to prove to yourself that you have any relevance or valid argument. Have you wondered why you have not had a single comment on here supporting you, just people mocking you? Why you have left eighteen absurdly long and deeply stupid and tedious comments on this thread and gained one single “like” from all those comments? Thus far in this thread alone you have stated that 40% of Dutch people don’t cycle at all, not even once a year, then stated that you won’t provide the proof you claimed you had of this because “it’s now irrelevant”, you have stated that the Netherlands, with 15 cyclist deaths per billion miles ridden, has a death rate three times higher than the USA, which has a death rate of 45 deaths per billion miles travelled, and now you’re actually arguing with your own evidence. No wonder you’re a laughing stock on here. Go away and waste other people’s time and stop providing a case study of the Dunning-Kruger effect.
Since we’re talking (checks
Since we’re talking (checks thread again) why UK cycle sales have plummeted to 1970s levels, and now “infra” and “US” … surely one of the best things linking that is Milton Keynes. Built during the 1970s as kind of a “US grid layout” (but like all our infra that we have pinched and reinvented here … not). Designed from the start with separate cycle / walking infra, planned with thoughts of efficient public transport as well … but it’s now the usual car-filled place with little active travel and the tiny national cycling share (as spelled out in this detailed article).
Or an earlier new town, Stevenage – this time starting from an actual “place”. Again with deliberate inclusion of cycle infra in from the beginning. Not known as a cycling mecca now.
However – both places also made it very easy to drive and own a car. Yes – the cycle infra existed and was far safer than the “painted cycle gutter” variety – but everywhere motor vehicles were prioritised. (Nobody was going to build a post-war “new town” and then deliberately restrict driving!) And this was at a time when driving was particularly aspirational and mass motoring was still the bright future.
On closer inspection the cycle infra isn’t great anyway (see e.g. Milton Keynes article). Not super convenient, lacking social safety, wayfinding isn’t really easy, it doesn’t take you right to places…
But the key point – as Carlton Reid summed up – where driving is easy, Brits drive. Driving has to have a sensible “cost” to it *, and additionally cycling has to be attractive relative to driving some journeys. Otherwise they’ll mostly be driven. That means lots of motor traffic – so nobody will want to cycle, and we’re into the vicious circle. Finally road safety will go down as that’s ultimately related to the numbers driving.
* In my experience people tend to look at journey time and fuel cost and compare to alternatives. And the latter – even in the “super expensive” UK – can be relatively low per journey compared to public transport. Obviously people are keenly aware of cost of taxes, maintenance and insurance but perhaps see that as a given fixed cost – there’s no escaping those because you have to have a car so it doesn’t factor into the “total cost of a trip”?
chrisonabike wrote:
Just want to observe that you came extremely close to agreeing with me here. As I’ve been saying, more than a few times, after wasting time, money, and lives on pointless construction dedicated to a single vehicle type, municipalities pivot to strategies that do work to improve road safety, and those strategies are reducing motor vehicle volumes and lawlessness.
So we could, if we were smart, start there and skip pouring all the ineffectual paint and concrete.
Rendel Harris wrote:
Well hang on. That’s not evidence of anything other than the reach of the Big Infra conspiracy and how they’ve co-opted the blue-pilled sheeple. Or something.
In seriousness, though, I think once the argument descends to ‘I’ve got more likes than you’ it’s probably time to end the thread – some sort of equivalent of Godwin’s Law applies.
Good advice. Or when someone
Good advice. Or when someone simply declares themselves right. 🫅
Rendel Harris wrote:
No, it mentions that the Dutch official “estimate” is 2.5km. An estimate is not useful to us, here, since we are actually concerned with accuracy. Particularly not one from officials known to apply rose-colored glasses to their cycling statistics, for political and cultural reasons. They literally miss the mark by 300% in some instances ( https://www.dutchnews.nl/2021/09/cycling-injuries-three-times-more-than-official-figures/ ) which is either incomptence or willful disinformation.
No, I have not, because I know why. People do not like having their strongly-held beliefs challenged, especially not when those beliefs are central to their identity — and I figure that many posters here identify as “cyclists”. They especially do not like having those beliefs challenged by someone who knows what they are talking about, and isn’t going to be cowed by the personal insults that are used to try and silence them. No one likes being proven wrong, as you yourself discover every time you wade into a conversation with me. But you keep doing it, for presumably masochistic reasons that are your own business.
Both of those fatality statistics you just vomited have been proven wrong. Apparently you found those proofs too “tedious” to bother reading them, in which case, I might suggest that a cycling discussion forum is not the best place for you to spend your time.
dh700 wrote:
I tell you what, I’ll take a leaf out of your book, I’ll just make up a figure (for example, off the top of my head, that 40% of the population of the Netherlands do not cycle even one ride a year and do not have access to a bicycle), then when I’m challenged on it I’ll say I’ll produce evidence for it when I have time, then I’ll say once again that I will find it, and then when further challenged I will say it’s no longer relevant due to another statistic that I’ve made up in the interim. Seems to work for you.
Rendel Harris wrote:
You already tried that, when you attempted to fabricate US cyclists’ average mileage, and comically chose 50km. The difference is, I proved that your guess was impossible.
And, in the above case, again, whether or not 40% of the Dutch do not cycle — as they claim when surveyed — doesn’t matter, because even if we believe the official estimate of ~90% of the population cycling, we still cannot achieve their claimed ~15.5 Bkm annual distance, in light of the fact that 93% of those cyclists only ride 1.2km per day ( cf: https://www.peopleforbikes.org/news/best-kept-secret-dutch-biking-dutch-hardly-bike ie not “made up” ).
So, if one does the arithmetic, we find that the potential range of total Dutch cycling is approximately between 6.5 and 9.5 billion km annually, depending on whether we use the “estimate” of 90% cyclists or the surveyed value of 60%. Neither one is close to the estimated 15.5 bkm.
This comports with other evidence we have that Dutch officials frequently overstate their cycling statistics, for a variety of reasons.
dh700 wrote:
The fallback of conspiracy theorists everywhere, the official figures don’t accord with the theory I am trying to promulgate and therefore the official figures must be lying. Desperate stuff.
dh700 wrote:
US Department of Transport Annual Household Travel Survey figures for USA 2017 attached. Miles cycled annually by population of the USA, 9 billion. Population of USA 2017, 325 million. 9 billion divided by 325 million = 27.6 miles per person. 27.6 miles = 44.4 kms. You’re right, I was wrong; I overestimated by 5.6 kms.
Rendel Harris wrote:
Unfortunately for you, you previously claimed, back on page 1, “Average distance ridden by American cyclists per year, less than 50km.” Per cyclist, not per-person. So your arithmetic above should result in ~150km per cyclist, not 44.
So, much like your dear Dutch statisticians, you missed your target by 300% — more if we subscribe to your theory that persons who ride only once a year are not “cyclists”.
And, for the record, that survey data is unreliable by (unintentional) design, for the following reasons:
* The mileage reporting form only allows for odometers readings off motor vehicles. No provision for cycles is made.
* The travel log is designed for a respondent to log one day. So any cyclist who doesn’t ride every day is likely to remain completely uncounted.
* The survey relies on a parent to know the mileage that their children might have ridden. If you were ever a child, you might be a aware that a parent is unlikely to know this value with any precision. And children are the majority of US cyclists, so this has a huge effect on the accuracy. Even if they were to know this number, there’s no where in the survey to provide it.
* English and Spanish were the only languages available.
* The recruitment mechanisms — as with almost all such surveys — are almost guaranteed to miss most of the lowest-income bracket, who cycle much more than average, out of necessity.
* Their data-cleansing is so unsophiscated that it will reject, for example, a six+ hour ride starting and ending at the same location, which is thrown-out as an error, for being excessively long. Note this is door-to-door time, not moving time ( like Strava ). So if one rides, say, 40 km, stops for a leisurely lunch with a friend, and returns, that trip will not be allowed to count.
* Their distance-calculating tool, used by some respondents, automatically uses the shortest possible distance between points. Anyone who cycles almost never takes the shortest path, for a variety of reasons. Under some circumstances, they even use “as the crow flies” distances, which are never correct.
( Survey documentation available at: https://nhts.ornl.gov/documentation )
Basically, as I explained to you previously, no one has ever measured US cyclists’ mileage with any useful degree of precision. You seriously didn’t think that I’ve already reviewed this study?
Some day, perhaps, you will learn to start listening to me.
Neve mind all that now – what
Neve mind all that now – what about (sadly) pet safety transporting animals in motor vehicles:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4geyl0mrg8o
Not a funny story at all this time.
A reminder that perhaps we should offer some attractive alternatives to driving for those who really shouldn’t * at the same time as we maybe work on checking the competence of drivers more than once per lifetime?
* Mass motoring: so some people all the time but many people some of the time.
Comically overpriced bikes
Comically overpriced bikes
Rubbish dangerous infrastructure
Appalling driver attitude.
Thank you.
New bikes (in my opinion) are
New bikes (in my opinion) are way over priced – I appreciate all the reasons why (team sponsorship, R&D, retail overheads etc) but 14k for a bike is outragious
Marcus_Ironman_Richardson
It is ridiculous, of course, but everyone has a choice not to spend that much and 99% of people take that choice. It would only be truly outrageous if that were all that was available; as it is there are new bikes available for less than £1000 that will do you almost exactly the same job (alright, you might be 90 seconds slower over a 30 km time trial, not something most people care about). Using the cycle to work scheme you can get about 40% off, so you’re looking at £500 or less for a really good bike that, properly looked after, will last you at least a decade. A pound a week for something that could potentially save you hundreds a week (at a rough estimate, since Mrs H and I started cycle commuting and got rid of our car we have saved around £5000 a year on train fares, car servicing, insurance, petrol, parking permits et cetera) isn’t a bad deal.
there are new bikes available
there are new bikes available for less than £1000 that will do you almost exactly the same job
Yes!! Too often have I bored people on here about the revelatory £650 steel gravel bike with the fab cable disc brakes which I bought in the pre-disaster time of October 2019, and which has been the most used and abused bike I have ever had. I find myself much less perturbed about the existence of super-expensive bikes for the wealthy than I am about people in ‘normal’ £20-50,000 cars who would almost all cry ‘What?!, £650 for a bike?’
Marcus_Ironman_Richardson
This is so wrong.
The vast majority of bikes on the market are far, far cheaper than the premium models. The retail landscape is in a dire way and the RRP of a Dura-Ace Di2 equipped Colnago, Pinarello or S-Works SL8 is totally irrelevant.
Ask any bike shop or distributor, they just aren’t shifting enough bikes – whether £500, £1,000 or £5,000. If you drew a bell curve-style chart of bicycle sales volumes it would be heavily skewed towards the cheaper end, tailing off dramatically to a tiny number sold at the expensive end.
You don’t need a Porsche Cayenne to drive to work and the shops and it’s the same with bicycles. Brands like Colnago, Pinarello etc are only charging what they think people will pay for those halo products, it has no real connection with the overall cost and is definitely not related to the cost of ‘normal’ bikes.
You can get a Specialized Allez for £1,000. The carbon Giant TCR with disc brakes and 12 speed 105 is £1,750 while the Defy Advanced models are listed from £2,159 with 105 to £2,639 with Rival AXS. There are loads of other examples.
Bikes are expensive,
Bikes are expensive, expensive bikes are expensive. Snobbery dictates that people are drawn to what’s written down the levers. You can get some excellent kit for sub £1000.
All considered though. The cycle industry needs to look at the automotive sector. It’s eating itself trying to sell to this depleting pot. If brands invested as much in promoting cycling as they do marketing at trail centre bros then the market would open up.
As a hobby it is still largely populated by white, middle class blokes. It’s regressive.
Mtb was ahead in the 90s, female pros were as well known as the guys.
Good lord! Is this argument
Good lord! Is this argument still going on…?