In my experience Americans ( and I am painting with a very broad brush here) do not like bicyles in general or at best are ambivalent about them. Judging by the people in my family and that I work with, biking as a form transprotation is seen as a last resort, if at all. I, after biking to work for more than a year, am still ridiculed by co-workers, whenever they get the chance. Now you can spend a good amount of energy trying to figure out why they feel so threatened by it, but I feel on some very basic level it is deemed, as has been desribed to me "uncool", for "geeks" "nerds", you get the point. At its most basic, rejecting an automobile as the only/best option in a culture that is centered around automobiles, puts you outside the herd. When something is different people tend to attack first and ask questions later.

Americans will never give up the automobile by choice (in signifigant numbers). This type of change only happens when circumstances force people to change. Bicycling is percieved as more difficult and less desirable.

Also there is no "envy " involved in riding a utilitarian bike. People routinely brag about thier new cars. It is tough to make someone else feel inadequate/demonstrate your success when you roll up on a used bike vs. arriving in $120k mercedes.