Originally Posted by
grolby
Again. This is not the problem. "Non-cyclists" aren't ignorant of the idea that they could use a bike to get to work. They don't want to use a bike to get to work, for various reasons none of which can be solved by "marketing."
Two main reasons are no bike infrastructure and no suitable bikes available. Look at the cities implementing bike infrastructure and bike share programs, and it is crystal clear that you're wrong; people will ride instead of drive. It's not rocket science. Just as (primarily) Amsterdam and Copenhagen have already done the trial and error research to determine what works well for infrastructure, allowing other cities to largely implement carbon copies of their most effective designs, they've also figured out the best archetypical design for utility bicycle.
Originally Posted by
grolby
No, you missed the point, which is that there is no such thing as a bike that requires more frequent maintenance than another. There's just no differentiation on it at all, and little evidence that consumers care. BF is obsessed with "low-maintenance," but it's just not a thing in bike sales.
You've clearly never worked on a proper city bike. They are extremely low maintenance by design. Your experience in US bike shops offers
zero insight into quality city bikes, because, with the exception of a few shops that import European models, they just aren't available on the US market.
You're still trying to base your reasoning on outliers, which never leads to justified conclusions.
Originally Posted by
grolby
It's not like they haven't tried. Bike companies poured tons of money and effort into commuter bike lines in the wake of the oil price spikes in 2008. They were making and marketing the hell out of exactly the sort of bikes you prescribe - practical, internally-geared urban bikes. We all got very excited, figuring now that the industry was at last making bikes for regular people, they would sell like hotcakes. These commuter bike lines tanked. Across the board. Specialized discontinued their Globe brand last year - an entire brand of bikes for regular people! - because it wasn't selling.
How many bikes did your shop offer for sale that had IGH, racks, fenders, generator hubs, hub brakes, fully enclosed chain case, fender skirts, frames painted inside and out, and cargo capacity to carry at least a couple of kids and a bunch of groceries, plus rider, all in a single bike? What, specifically were the brands and models of those bikes? Those are the kinds of features that appear to non-recreational cyclists. They don't care about having 27 gear combinations or a lightweight, fragile carbon frame, or the need to wear ridiculous shoes just to go to the grocery store.
The bikes to which you refer didn't sell because they were half-a***d attempts to sell a product to a market the industry never bothered to try to understand
even though the heavy lifting had already been done for them. It is wholly absurd to believe that people who have no interest in bicycles, except as a practical transportation tool, in the US are so different from people who have no interest in bicycles, except as a practical transportation tool, in Europe. In both places, people just want to be able to get where they're going with the least aggravation, so they can get on with their day.
Of course, it's not going to happen overnight. It didn't happen overnight in Copenhagen and Amsterdam, either. It could happen a lot faster in US cities, however, if city planners and the bike industry in the US would run with the hard learned lessons of city planners and the bike industry of those European cities instead of trying to reinvent the bicycle.