1) One reason kids don't ride bikes as much because parents prefer couch potato kids to predators. When I was young, my 11-year old, 55-lb butt hauled papers at 5 am over an 8-mile route, alone. No way would that happen today. Kids ride bikes to the end of the driveway, in the subdivision, until Mom & Dad can afford a Barbie scooter.

2) Various US firms made a variety of affordable bikes for children. Need I elaborate?

3) We had 3 lousy channels to compete with baseball, football, basketball, hockey, swimming, and we had to ride our bikes to each place to play each sport. The closest thing to a video game was table tennis, or Clue (and you had to know how to read to play, not txt2pla)