Bottecchia fan
Join Date: Aug 2003
Location: Colorado Springs, CO
Posts: 3,520
Bikes: 1959 Bottecchia Milano-Sanremo (frame), 1966 Bottecchia Professional (frame), 1971 Bottecchia Professional (frame), 1973 Bottecchia Gran Turismo, 1974 Bottecchia Special, 1977 Bottecchia Special (frame), 1974 Peugeot UO-8
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Originally Posted by
nlerner
Wouldn't increased affluence for Asian countries mean buying fewer bikes and more cars? That's pretty much what this 2004 article says in regard to China:
http://www.thestandard.com.hk/stdn/s.../FK12Ad04.html
At any rate, the world population has less than doubled from 1970 to 2005: 3.7b to 6.5b. Yet the number of bikes sold over that time (or to 2003) has just about tripled: 36mil to 105mil. That, of course, doesn't include used bikes. Just seems like a some sort of boom to me.
Neal
Interesting article. I'm sure that is happening in Bejing. I'm more sceptical about it happening outside the major cities where I believe the majority of the Chinese people still live. If the bicycle represents "a cheap machine used mainly by the poor" I suspect that still represents a few hundred million people buying bikes today that were probably walking in 1970. Same situation in India I suspect. Interestingly, some of my Indian co-workers and I were discussing bicycle commuting as I bike to work every day and they felt that no one who had achieved any level of success in India would ride a bike to work even if they owned a nice bike and rode it recreationally. It would be looked at as a sort of reverse status symbol. That might be true in China too amoung the newly affluent middleclass of the cities.
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1959 Bottecchia Milano-Sanremo(frame), 1966 Bottecchia Professional (frame), 1971 Bottecchia Professional (frame),
1973 Bottecchia Gran Turismo, 1974 Bottecchia Special, 1977 Bottecchia Special (frame),
1974 Peugeot UO-8, 1988 Panasonic PT-3500, 2002 Bianchi Veloce, 2004 Bianchi Pista