Originally Posted by
mconlonx
People buy what their peers are riding. Not too many people riding IGH bikes. At the moment, there are more IGH bikes for sale than ever. Most people don't buy them, while similar style derailleur drivetrain bikes sell well.
If no one was buying them, then international companies wouldn't be making more models available.
Originally Posted by
mconlonx
If a shop or co-op is not seeing a representative sample of bicyclists, I don't know who is.
Then you don't know who is.
There exist many bicyclists who do not utilize co-ops. Some people only go to bike shops. Some people do all of their own repairs. Some people only let their friends do their repair work. Co-ps are not going to provide a representative sample.
Further, not all bikes require the same amount of maintenance, so we can't look at repairs to figure out what people are riding, at least not without controlling for a many other variables.