Originally Posted by
treadtread
I work in one of those big companies that everyone loves to hate. I have a Masters degree from the University of Minnesota. This thread puzzles me though. It may be just an SF Bay area thing, but I have never caught the vibe that only poor, homeless people bike.
It varies by region. In NYC, all kinds of people ride bikes now, though this is a fairly recent change. You'll see upper middle class people in expensive clothing riding bikes. Not many, but some. I think it's a pragmatic choice, especially now that we have the Citibike bike share program.
I moved to NYC from a NJ suburb this past summer. There, I was an oddball to use my bike as transportation. There are Hispanic immigrants who commute by bike, and they outnumber me, but there are not many people on bike in the suburbs. That is where transportation cycling is more correlated with poverty. The good news is that this is slowly changing. More middle class people are choosing it. The numbers are tiny, but the slope of the increase is sharp.