Bikes Are Flying Off the Racks, Not Down the Streets

Bikes Are Flying Off the Racks, Not Down the Streets

http://www.gorctrails.com/board/topi...ue&TOPIC_ID=83
http://tinyurl.com/hkl98

Worried Parents, Sprawling Cities Reduce Riding

By Elaine Rivera
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 17, 2003; Page B01

Like most of his friends in Eldersburg, Md., 6-year-old Nate Diamond
has a bicycle. It's black and has training wheels and spends most of
its life in the garage. He wheels it out maybe once a month, to ride
only as far as his mother can see.

"He doesn't ride it very much," Sally Diamond conceded, as she
considered a display of new bicycles outside an Alexandria bike shop.
"There's more traffic, and people aren't as nice as they used to be."

Still, she and her husband, Tom, were shopping for a bigger bike as a
Christmas present for Nate -- thus contributing to two apparently
contradictory trends: Even as sales of children's bikes soar, children
are riding them less and less.

"It's not like when we were kids, when you'd just take off and go two
miles to the store or wherever," Tom Diamond said. "Those days are
gone."

When kids do ride their bikes, it is often a pale version of that
childhood tradition. They ride endlessly around a single block or
cul-de-sac, up and down the same street or, in busier neighborhoods, up
and down the driveway. It is a far cry from days gone by when
generations of children arrived home from school, jumped on their
10-speeds or banana bikes and rode -- no helmets, no chaperones, no
deadline except dusk or dinner.

"Parents just don't feel comfortable anymore letting their children go
out and ride their bikes alone," said Bill Wilkinson, executive
director of the National Center for Bicycling and Walking. "Our
communities are not designed for it."

Neighborhoods and schools are built for cars, rather than pedestrians
or cyclists. In a world that feels ever more dangerous, parents drive
children everywhere to make sure they're safe. And in two-career
families, less free time for parents means less free time for children
as well.

"There's soccer or swimming or music lessons," said Wilkinson, whose
organization lobbies parents to get their children to walk and ride
more bikes to combat obesity. "Most kids are never out of direct
supervision of an adult."

The result is a documented decline in bike riding, according to an
annual survey by the National Sporting Goods Association. The
organization surveys 10,000 households annually on biking participation
among people ages 7 to 17. It found that about 20.4 million children in
the United States rode a bicycle six or more times a year in 1991, and
16.8 million did so last year.

At the same time, more children's bicycles are being sold. That is
partly because they are cheaper than ever, according to Matt Wiebe of
Bicycle Retailer and Industry News magazine. Wiebe said more than 80
percent of sales are made at Wal-Mart, where bikes can be found for a
little as $30.

"That's the cost of a decent basketball," Wiebe said.

Although there are no aggregate figures for bike sales, Wiebe said the
trend is tracked through imports, which have spiked over the past five
years. There has been "phenomenal growth" in the import of juvenile
bikes, those with wheels 20 inches or smaller, at the same time that
suppliers and retailers report leaner inventories.

But buying the bike doesn't mean riding the bike. "It's like when we go
out and buy the exercise equipment or join the health club," Wilkinson
said. "We think we got the benefit out of it."

Connor Wayne, 8, spends more time on his scooter than his bike. Either
way, Connor volunteered as he scooted along beside his parents on a
walk through their Alexandria neighborhood, "I'm not allowed to go
around the block by myself."

His mother, Kristi Wayne, said she and her husband have been discussing
when -- if ever -- they should let him take off on his bike alone. "We
don't know at what point that would be," Sean Wayne said, casting an
uncertain look at his wife. "Times are different now."

Times and traffic are both different. "Before urban sprawl happened,
kids could walk or bike to school," said Angela D. Mickalide, program
director at the National Safe Kids Campaign. Despite the increase in
traffic, she said, bicycle-related deaths among children 14 and under
have declined by 60 percent in the past 15 years.

Four hundred children were killed in bike accidents in 1987; the figure
dropped to 168 last year. Mickalide said children who do ride these
days wear helmets and take other safety precautions, such as having
adult supervision. Another reason for the decline, she said, is that
children aren't riding bikes as much.

Arlington parent Ed Fendley, a cyclist himself, says there is a
different type of risk in not allowing children the freedom to ride:
loss of independence. "I don't want my kids not to know how to get
around on their own," said Fendley, who noted that his son, Zack, 12,
rides a mile to school and two miles to lacrosse practice by himself --
wearing a helmet, of course. He said that building his son's sense of
independence is as crucial as the daily exercise.

"He's not dependent on his mom taking him everywhere," Fendley said. "I
don't want my kids to grow up that way -- that the way they've gotten
around is in the back of their mom's minivan," he said. "Independence
is just as important for their health."

But Fendley, who was chatting recently with other parents about how to
convince their children to ride their bikes more often, might be the
exception.

Mary Skocz, president of the PTA at Wakefield High School in Arlington,
doesn't have bikes at her home. She stopped buying them because they
kept getting stolen. Her son, Tim, 16, walks to school a couple of
blocks away.

Skocz marveled at how times have changed. She remembered growing up in
Butler, Pa., where the bike rack on Main Street was always full after
school. "Kids biked or walked everywhere," she said, adding that nobody
locked their doors, and it was the car that sat in the garage for days
on end.

"It was a big deal if your mother drove you to the swimming pool," she
said. "You would have to be getting over a broken leg -- that was a
luxury service."

fgoodwin wrote:
Bikes Are Flying Off the Racks, Not Down the Streets

http://www.gorctrails.com/board/topi...ue&TOPIC_ID=83
http://tinyurl.com/hkl98

Worried Parents, Sprawling Cities Reduce Riding

By Elaine Rivera
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 17, 2003; Page B01

Well, at least *this* article is only almost *3* years old and not
*10*, like the other ancient article this person posted.

::eyeroll::

Leah

wrote:

fgoodwin wrote:
Bikes Are Flying Off the Racks, Not Down the Streets
------------------------
Bikes sold but not ridden is merely a result of laziness, like
unused health club memberships. They'll use them when the gas
gets expensive enough!
Steve

fgoodwin wrote:
Bikes Are Flying Off the Racks, Not Down the Streets

snip

Maybe it's a good sign that the bike cages at my kid's middle school are
now packed to capacity!