Originally Posted by
banjo_mole
If not everywhere, than certainly here. This is my theory:
Cycling today is dead because people think,
"Oh, I'd like a bicycle to ride to work/school/etc."
They go to dept. store X and buy some *** welded 40lb steel monster that's out of adjustment for $100. It's a mountain bike, by the way, because road bikes are usually not there, or look "too unconfortable and twitchy."
It is slow, hard as hell to pedal, and out of adjustment. Saddle's too low. Miserable. It gets lost, thrown away, or never ridden.
Road bikes were the standard bicycle until the MTB boom.
"road bikes" is a relative term Free spirits and huffys were the most popular bikes of the "bike-boom" era and they had all the problems you get with a department store bike today.
People will always buy bikes that are inappropriate for their purposes. Lots of people who have never ridden a bike before are buying "craigslist special" schwinn varsities converted to brakeless fixies to commute on whereas ten years ago that same person might have bought a mountain bike. I'd say a mountain bike is much more well suited to this task.
Cycling is a lot more popular now than it was 10 years ago. It all has to do with the culture. The general acceptance of cycling culture as well as the infrastructure to make make cycle-commuting safe and easy.
Portland is a great example of somewhere where cycling isn't dead. It seems like everyone there jockeys a bicycle.