Originally Posted by
I-Like-To-Bike
I suppose that settles it; one employer's employees who signed up for a bicycle incentive program are representative of the average American who uses a bicycle for commuting, transportation or anything else. Would it be snooping to ask who that Employer might be?
I already replied to you with actual data from across the US on page 2. You just chose to ignore it. The average commute in the US is 7.2 miles the mean is 6 miles. If you have a better source of data other than speculation feel free to post it.
Originally Posted by
I-Like-To-Bike
Does that mean a cycling commuter's best bet is to buy a cheap mtn bike from a big box store since they outsell everything else on the U.S. market by a wide margin? I suspect Walmart alone outsells all the LBS' combined new unit sales by a factor of 2 or 3.
When you can buy half a dozen of those for the price of one of these commuter beauties then yes. Would a Walmart MTB be the
optimal choice for any kind of commuting? Probably not. Is it
the choice for most? Probably yes. Just a quick glance at the bike rack at a local college campus tells you the story. When price enters the equation along with the rate of diminishing returns a lot of folks choose the cheapest option that gets them from A to B. Free markets work surprisingly well even with all their shortcomings and problems.