A few pages ago someone mentioned that cycling is not really seen as "cool" or the thing to do. Perhaps one way to get more people on bikes is to advertise it as the "rebel" thing to do. Another would be to put a Harley Davidson sticker on a Walmart special and up the price from $99 to $199. Or have the manufacturers already tried this?

This strategy has until recently worked wonders for the Harley-Davidson company, where they will take an overweight, obsolete part and brand it as 'rebel' or 'classic' or something of the sort and look at the flocks of lemmings that bit the bait.

Unfortunately as of late it looks like they're going to have to start selling their obsolete technology at real prices as the market seems to be refusing to pay $20,000 for 1960's technology any longer. They did have a good run though.