Bike Minded Market Watch: Time Magazine Notes Bike Sales Up!
Casey, Rebeca & Tori in front of Berlin coffee house on 4th
Yes, people we are in a bike boom and it’s a beautiful thing. I have taken to carrying my camera with me wherever I go so I can try to capture a bit of our unique LB bike flavor. Recently this summer I was sitting downtown at Berlin Coffee House enjoying a delicious breakfast (Have you been? No? You need to go!) when I spied these lovely young riders. I was inspired by their energy and their look.
I’m afraid I have their order mixed up (girls, please forgive me) but I wanted to share that Casey is a hairdresser, Rebeca works for Apple, and Tori works for homeless services. These young women are passionate about bicycling and Long Beach and they are exactly the type of young women I’d love to recruit into Bikeable Communities (hint hint) for an upcoming project focused on the importance of style and design for successful advocacy.
And now to my headline. Can you imagine how delighted I was when I picked up the latest issue of Time Magazine on Friday? Here’s why, right in their “Briefing” section in the front under “Economy” is a short piece called “Another Day Another Dollar.” The piece illustrates a selection of items that we are spending both more and less on – comparing first quarter 2007 to first quarter 2011.
No one will be surprised that both lottery ticket purchases are up (16%), and alcohol consumption is up (5%) but the truly exciting part is that bike sales are up 9%! For the LBC that means about 41,400 new bikes on the road. I would so love to know how many of those riders are “first time since childhood” riders like myself. I have a feeling it’s a large majority.
Of course anyone who stands on any corner just about anywhere in Long Beach could have told you this. As could the owners of the several new bike shops that have opened in the past year around Long Beach. For some reason though, it makes it feel even more important that Time (quoting data from the Department of Commerce) would notice this trend and include it in their article. This is especially sweet for me because for the past several months I’ve been trying to interest a journalist who writes frequently for Time into the whole bike boom story (starring Long Beach of course) and she just hasn’t felt it has reached a tipping point. Perhaps now she will.
There was another very positive increase – foreign travel is up in the U.S. 17%. I’ll get into why that’s good for Long Beach in my next blog!
Posted: August 14th, 2011 under Advocacy, Cycle Chic, Marketing.
Tags: Cycle Chic
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