Originally Posted by
cyccommute
I don't know if that's valid. Considering the low number of bicycle commuters in the US (somewhere around 5 million), I'd suspect that most of them bicycle to work because they want to...not because they have to. In other words, enthusiasts. There are a few people that ride their $49 bikes to work but I see far more expensive bikes then cheap ones.
It might be a regional phenomena. Around here (Bloomington, IN and Indianapolis, IN) almost all the commuting bikes I see are cheap MTBs. But there are few bicycle enthusiasts in Indiana; cycling is a fringe hobby here.