General Cycling Discussion - More bicycles purchased than cars in first 4 months of 2009?

Has anyone else seen this statistic and can vouch for it's accuracy? I stumbled upon it here (http://heinberg.wordpress.com/2009/06/02/206-look-on-the-bright-side/), here's the quote in full: "In fact, in the first four months of 2009, more bicycles were sold in the US than cars and trucks put together (over 2.55 million bicycles were purchased, compared to fewer than 2.4 million cars and trucks). How utterly cool."

It would be great if that is true, wouldn't it?

Here in Australia bicycles have out sold cars every year since 2001 (and probably a long time before that). What I don't see is people riding those bikes everyday, in fact, I remember reading a statistic a couple of years back saying that while the number of bicycles sold has never been higher, the number of kilometres actually ridden has never been lower. Most of those bikes seem to be buried in garages, and in many ways I'm glad they are. Do you really want to lose your advantage in heavy traffic? Do you really want to see cycling taxed the way motoring is now? Do you really want a heap of people taking up cycling without any training, experience or even a clue in many instances?

...and in many ways I'm glad they are. Do you really want to lose your advantage in heavy traffic? Do you really want to see cycling taxed the way motoring is now? Do you really want a heap of people taking up cycling without any training, experience or even a clue in many instances?

Sure. Let 'em all take up cycling and let Darwin, then God, sort them out. :lol:

I heard this statistic a while ago, and then discovered that it's not even newsworthy; bikes have long outsold cars.

But what I've never seen info on (nor bothered to research) is what kind of bikes these are. I'd hypothesize that the market is fueled by kids bikes and by adults who get the urge to start biking, buy the cheapest POS they find at Target, then get bored with it. It's easy to let a $199 toy collect dust in the garage. That doesn't happen with a car.

This statistic shouldn't be a surprise. Most of these bikes are three-figure price tags. Naturally, more consumers can afford to buy them, and buy more of them.

Shoes have outsold bikes every year for all of history. Bikes must be on the way out.

It's true on my block. I'm sure that's a representative sample.