Originally Posted by
luker
I don't recall ever seeing another cyclist on one of those rides, either. It was weird...that the bikes were flying out of the shops, and I suppose they were popping up on people's walls or something, ala seinfeld.
I'm not sure if not seeing other cyclists on the road is an indicator that no one is riding bikes. I used to commute in to Naval Station Norfolk with only one road leading into gate two and I rarely ever saw another cyclist, but the guards told me that they saw a lot of bikes come through every morning. I ride on TOSRV each year where 3,000 cyclists start at the same time, take the same road, and arrive at the same destination; and it's not unusual to see no one else on the road in front of you. In the 90's this wasn't true. From this I can deduce that to fill up 105 miles of road so that you always see other cyclists you need 6,000 bikes.
I was a witness to, and participant, in the early 70's bike boom and it was something to behold. Old bike clubs run be sportingly dressed men who ran small century rides for themselves suddenly had hundreds of teenagers like me show up for their rides wearing cutoff jeans and t-shirts. The following year there would be more than a thousand.
A lot of credit has to be given to these older men and women that carried the torch for cycling through the car crazy 50's and 60's and were there ready to help us when the road apple hit the spokes in 1971. Even small towns had bike clubs. We, of the pimply set, used to follow Chuck Harris (of bike mirror fame) around like he was the Pied Piper of Knox County.