VELO SENSE

Of course you do.  You’re a cyclist.   It would be wonderful to spend the day around cycles and cyclists, talking bikes all day.   Well, I’ve come to throw cold water on your dream.

The cold water comes from the National Bicycle Dealers Association, Industry Review, for 2009 – http://nbda.com/articles/industry-overview-2009-pg34.htm

I call your attention to the bottom of the first list – number of bicycles sold (in millions).     The high point of bicycle sales in the USA was 1973, with sales of 15 million bikes (20″ wheel size or larger)    15 million units has never been achieved since ’73.     The closest year is 2005 which was still a million units short of ’73.

The population of the US in 1973 was about 211 million people.    Today it’s about 309 million.    So in the past four decades, we’ve added nearly 100 million people, but still sell fewer bikes than when our population was 2/3s it’s present size.

For a second dousing in cold water, look further down in the report and find the number of specialty bicycle retail locations.    Notice that just since the year 20o0, the number has fallen.   About 1/3 of the dealers doing business in 2000 no longer exist today.     The trend is few stores, doing a higher volume.     That is of course, a higher volume, per store.    Remember that total bicycle sales still lag 1973.

Yes, it would be fun to own a bike shop.    But you’d have to realize going in that you are bucking some strong trends.    Bicycles aren’t selling like they did 40 years ago.   They are being sold from fewer, but larger, shops.   I’m not saying you can’t find a niche somewhere, but trends make opening a bike shop an iffy proposition.

I’ve been reading Bike Snob, the book, and the author provides a taxonomy of Bicyclists.    Among the types described are the Retro-Grouch and the Lone Wolf.

The Retro-Grouch favors steel frames, hates carbon fiber, and hates “boutique” wheel sets.

I’m only a RG by default.   My bikes are old, and steel.   I wouldn’t pay for carbon fiber (though I’d take a carbon frame if it were given to me)     I don’t really find boutique wheels to be a problem, but I can’t justify the money if my bikes already have decent wheels.

I’m also a Lone Wolf, and this is not by default.    The Lone Wolf doesn’t follow trends.   He doesn’t dress in a particular way are use/avoid particular equipment.   He does what pleases him and the rest of the world be damned.

The Lone Wolf avoids other cyclists, and though I don’t take that to extremes, I am not a member of any local club or cycling group, and probably will not be.

I’ve been reading Bike Snob by Bike Snob NYC.    It’s funny and well worth your time.   Maybe when I’m done I’ll do a bit longer and more detailed review.   For now though, the book has inspired this post on safety.

Bike Snob makes the point that cycling is hyped as dangerous by everyone, including many cyclists, bike manufacturers, and of course helmet manufacturers.     He doesn’t conclude that one should go sans helmet, as does Mr. Mikael Colville-Anderson at Copenhagenize, but Bike Snob definitely seems to think the dangers of cycling are exaggerated.    It’s my job to point out that the dangers are not exaggerated.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_safety

If you take a look at the wiki site linked above, and scroll down to the heading “Statistics”, you’ll see a table listing several modes of transport, including walking, and their relative dangers.     Cycling is always near the bottom.   In other words, cycling is always one of the most dangerous forms of transportation.

The tables give us the Deaths by three different measures; distance, time, and number of journeys.    By all three measures, motorcycles are the most dangerous form of transport – by whopping big margins.     By two measures – journeys and hours- bicycles are the second most dangerous.     If measured in kilometers traveled, bicycles are safer than motorcycles, and safer than walking, but more dangerous than any other form of transport listed.

To go into a bit deeper, the stats are listed as “Deaths per Billion Journeys” (Journeys), “Deaths per Billion Hours” (Time), and “Deaths per Billion Kilometers” (Distance).    Again, cycling is the second most dangerous mode of travel when measured in deaths per Journey or per Hour, and third most dangerous when measured per Kilometer.

Now, which of these measures -Time, Distance, or Journeys should a cyclist use?    Well, one way to look at it is to take a tip from the airlines – e.g. use the stat that is most advantageous.    The air travel industry constantly tells us that airplanes are the safest mode of transport, and that’s true, as long as one measures deaths per kilometer.   This is hardly surprising, as every time a plane lands safely it has racked up hundreds of thousands of passenger-kilometers  (several hundred to a few thousand kilometers, multiplied by several hundred passengers).    We don’t often find planes being used to transport one person 12 kilometers, as we routinely see with cars and bicycles.    It’s the nature of air planes that they should rack up huge numbers of passenger-kilometers, so when the deaths are divided into this very large number, the “death rate” will be very low.    Or, to put it the other way ’round, air travel will be measured to be very safe.    Naturally, this is the measure the airlines prefer to publicize.

Look at the table that lists deaths per Journey.    Changing the measure changes the rating.   Suddenly planes are the third most dangerous way one can travel, albeit still safer than motorcycles and safer than our beloved bicycles.     The airlines don’t publicize that air travel is more dangerous than going by boat, foot, car, van, train, or bus, when safety is measured as deaths per journey.

So what measure do bicycle advocates use – well, usually distance.   That way, they can truthfully say that being a pedestrian is more dangerous than being a cyclist, and as long as no mention is made that cycling is still the third most dangerous mode of travel, cycling starts to seem wonderfully safe.   It’s safer than walking!   Well of course, bicycles are going to rack up more miles compared to walking, just as planes rack up more miles when compared to cars. Divide the number of deaths into a larger number and you get a lower death rate.    If instead, we measure deaths per billion journeys, being a pedestrian is four times safer than being a cyclist.     You’ll probably never see that fact on any other cycling blog.

So what’s the right measure to choose?    Well, they’re all correct, they just measure safety differently.   A  key thing is to understand that the safety of different modes of travel can change remarkably depending on what Death is being divided into – Journeys, distance, or time.

Notice though, that the safety of air travel varies markedly depending on the measure, whereas other modes vary much less.    Buses for instance, are either the safest or second safest mode by all three measures.   Rail is either second or third, under all three measures.   Bicycles share this relatively low variability.    They are, by any measure, the second or third most dangerous way to travel.

Bike Snob goes on about how dangerous cars are, but by any of the three measures we’ve looked at cars are four to fourteen times safer than bicycles.   On page 106 he suggests that “Using a car instead of a bike because it’s safer is like climbing out the window on a rope ladder because of the remote possibility your staircase might be infested with termites”.

Maximum points for rhetorical flourish, but no points for useful insight.    Even if you’re just going to the corner store for a half gallon of milk, the car is still safer than the bike, and that’s true whether we measure the deaths by time, distance, or number of journeys.

So am I suggesting ditching the bike and always using the car instead?  No.  but I am suggesting that we cyclists don’t need to engage in mutual self-delusion.   Why should a cyclist blogger, or cyclist book author try to suggest to another cyclist, or worse, someone considering getting into cycling,  that bike riding is really wonderfully safe and that there is nothing to be afraid of when cycling is, in fact, always one of the three, or two, most dangerous modes of travel?

Quibbles where quibbles are due-

One might reasonably ask why the tables list vans and cars separately.   After all, both are four wheeled motor vehicles, traveling the same roads.   Ok, combine car and van stats, and the results change somewhat.  Bicycle deaths per journey are only 2.8 times greater than car/van deaths.   When we measure deaths/hours car/vans are 2.89 times safer.   When measured by kilometers, car/vans are more than 10 times safer than bikes.

Another quibble might be that the stats are not broken down by nation/province/city/rural or in other ways that might point up very real differences from one place to another.    For example, I’d be willing to believe that bicycle travel is relatively safer in Copenhagen than in Detroit.    The problem with broadly gathered stats is that they may not reflect local conditions.