big john

Another thing about Strava, it has grown in use which doesn't mean cycling has grown. Lots of us ride regularly and don't use Strava.

Also, anecdotes of seeing cyclists on the road may not be accurate.

AlmostTrick

Road cycling seems just as popular as ever around here. Just as safe too. Today we have better lights and Hi-vis gear than the old days. And thanks to the internet, better access to how to properly and safely navigate the roads with motor traffic.

Rides4Beer

Because the OP mentioned them in his first post, in a somewhat disparaging manner. As always, do whatever works for you. I'll be racing an "endurance" road bike with SPD pedals, and can guarantee you that I'll have no problems keeping up with the "race" road bikes with SPD-SLs.

FlashBazbo

Cycling is thriving here. (Triathlon, on the other hand, is dying on the vine.) A few years back, we lost a half dozen centuries and gran fondos and a lot of races from the calendar. Things looked bleak. In part, this was because triathlon hit the area big (with a couple world championships held in Chattanooga) and it became the cool thing to do. People who volunteered for races and gran fondos were then volunteering for Iron Mans and world championships in triathlon. Promoters who previously produced bike racing, gran fondos, and centuries abandoned cycling to put on triathlons seemingly every month in every city and small town.

But Iron Man appears, for a lot of racers, to be a "one and done" or "bucket list" kind of event. The triathletes in this area got over it. (Mainly because of the swim.) And now, a lot of them have switched to cycling. Hincapie has been doing a gran fondo locally for a couple years and a couple big promoters are putting on excellent gran fondos at bargain prices (undercutting Hincapie, on better courses, by about 75%). And to my surprise, it appears that e-bikes are bringing out the Millennials. It's not much of an overstatement to say that, at any given local fondo, pedal bikes are for those over 40 and e-bikes are for those under.

big john

I don't doubt you can go fast with SPDs, I used them for years. I just wanted to mention the fact that I have foot problems I attribute (partly) to them as do others I know.

Gconan

God inspired shimano to create SPD pedals. I've walked down steep banks with my bike. I have crossed creeks on a tree and also steping stones while carrying my bike.

Gconan

Good to know about the looks. I needed more support as well so the newer XTR SPDs 2019 or newer solved the problem for me.

burnthesheep

Forest and trees, forest and trees.

You're staring at the veins of a leaf on a tree. He's talking about the forest.

Either way, if both types didn't have their best purposes then Shimano wouldn't sell them. Right?

If we had to analyze any "funny" to it, it was about seeming rather than being. Why blow $15k on a superbike to defeat all of the superbike design intent? It's meant to be ridden in a more aggressive stance, so why the spacers? It's meant to be ridden with really light SL's or other equivalent. Superbikes are no compromises, but they get bought and loaded with compromises. So, why not buy the bike they already designed for you in the first place instead? To seem rather than to be. To be seen on a superbike than to use one.

It would be like putting snow tires on a Corvette and raising the suspension up by 4 inches and making the shock/spring combo as soft and supple as possible. Why? They sell fast comfortable cars and fast comfortable bikes? Why buy the fast uncomfortable bike and try to make it something else?

Zaskar

I agree with the "Death Valley" analogy. But, I wouldn't be surprised if road cycling survives that long. I think, in 25 yrs, road riding/racing will be about as popular as fencing - at least in the U.S.

Think about this past weekend. Remember that group of kids you saw riding bikes in your neighborhood? Yeah... me neither. They weren't. Those 8-14 year-olds, who were riding bike circa 1985 and before, today, are playing video games. I know, they also play soccer, lacrosse, football, baseball... but, they're not riding bikes. So, in 25 years, when "we" are done. That's it for the U.S. roadies.

"Fred"

Northern Michigan here and I also see road riding slowing down both as group rides and at events. I think social media and the awareness of deaths on the road as a part of the reason. I also see that with more people riding gravel bikes on gravel roads taking some of the pavement people away as well.

I do feel gravel road riding is different than pavement and count them as 2 different styles even though they are both "road riding" in a sense.

Amt0571

I'm in Spain and I partly agree. However I think that it maybe is a cultural problem.

A lot of people around me seem to be quite lazy. They have excuses for everything, even when it comes to walking. It's either too hot, or too cold, or too far, or too hilly... Whatever reason not to move their ass. Also, people want instant satisfaction. They don't want to go slow. They don't enjoy the journey. Even on a motorized vehicle, when they go anywhere, they spend the time looking their phone instead of looking out the windows. Even if they eventually ride a bike, they do it with headphones, missing the sounds that are around them (and putting themselves in danger).

This is one reason I dislike e-bikes (on most cases, not all). They go against doing any effort, reaching your goals and personal satisfaction after accomplishing something.

Personally, I can't imagine myself without a bike. Don't understand what is the reason to take the car unless I need to carry something big, or have to go far in a tight schedule.

Jack Tone 

That's an interesting observation. When I was a kid, (50 to 60 years ago), you couldn't look down the street without seeing kids on bikes. That was our entertainment. Now I hardly ever see a kid on a bike in the neighborhood, and it's a good place for kids to ride.

Leinster

Well, it is February.

I see loss of kids out riding bikes around here. The BMX track is busy every Saturday and Thursday night. The skate park always has kids pulling jumps and other tricks. I see families out on the bike trail when my wife and I take our kids up the valley on weekends. And on the school run I see hundreds if not thousands of bikes of all shapes, sizes and price points making their way to all the middle and higher schools around.

Granted, I live in a relatively small town, with mild weather year round and a higher median income than most US cities, and all those factors probably tend to increase the number of cyclists on the roads.

Maelochs

Not so sure. I mean, remember all the kids we used to golf with in our early teens? Yeah, none here, either. But a lot of people golf. Bowl, too.

Cycling used to be a big thing for kids, but apparently parents don't let kids do Anything off the leash nowadays. It also used to be at least tolerated until age 16, when it was cars or nothing (for most.) But a lot of people take up cycling as a hobby later in life, whether they rode as kids or not.

I don't see cycling going away ... at least so long as I can ride .....

Leinster

I know so many people who ride now, who didn’t when they were younger. I know this because I grew up with a lot of them. I mean, sure some of us would ride our bmxes to the local park or to a friend’s house when we were little, but by the time we were all teenagers and I was going on club rides to the countryside, they all had cheap heavy steel mountain bikes that leaned up against the garage and rusted.

They got into their 30s and either a) had to give up contact/impact sports because of too many injuries of one sort or another or b) got told by their doctor that they needed to do something about their weight problem, or c) some combination of the 2. And cycling was right there.

Machka 

Speaking of "death valley" ... doesn't Death Valley fill with cyclists once a year on the Furnace Creek 508?

big john

Not anymore. The NPS killed the event a few years ago when they started demanding fees from event organizers. Killed some running events, too.
Now there is an event called the Silver State 508 in Nevada.

Seattle Forrest

I didn't know about the Death Valley Germans.

https://www.otherhand.org/home-page/...alley-germans/

Road Fan

For my bigger picture of the state of Road Fan's road cycling, this year is my time to return to regular cycling, since I don't have full-time work any more. No new bikes on the horizon, but my Woodrup frame is getting cold-set and painted, which will allow me to enjoy its flexy 531 structure with modern gearing. My damaged Mondonico is back on the road, and my '84 Trek 610 is my go-to for local and errand rides - nothing modern on it!

Zaskar

Fair point. And, that may be what keeps road cycling alive.

autonomy

I've been telling my wife that road cycling around here is the new tennis for the rich. Some of the best roads to ride in the Boston suburbs go through fairly wealthy towns and you see lots of people on the roads on the weekends, a lot of them on expensive custom titanium bikes. The towns have responded too by improving infrastructure (trails, road markings, signs, etc.). I've seen more and more gravel-type bikes around here they don't seem to be quite as prevalent partly because of selection bias (less likely to see them on the road, right?) and because there's not as much gravel around here as in other parts of the country. Personally, there have been instances where I've avoided going on rides or certain routes due to safety concerns. I, too, feel like drivers are getting more aggressive and more distracted around here.
I strongly believe that autonomous cars are nowhere near being able to handle our roads and will not get there even in the next five years. Some options are gravel, riding when traffic is lighter (early morning on weekends), or driving to ride in places where traffic is lighter.

bikecrate

In my own neighborhood I've seen more cruiser family riders. There still seems to be the same number of utility riders and roadie types around. The biggest group I've seen disappear is the SS/Fixie crowd. Used to be everywhere and congregate in large groups, but not as prevalent anymore.

Succhia Ruota

I'd argue that with the available technology, equipment – and increased advocacy/education – cycling is safer now than when I was growing up.

One of the single greatest cycling products ever, IMHO, is Garmin's radar. I LOVE it – and will never ride on a public street without it again. And bonus point, FTW: It's gone a long way to assuage my wife's anxiety about my riding in traffic.

The Garmin Connect (Google Maps) course builder with the cycling lane/path + popularity heat map overlays make plotting a safe course trivially easy.

Any place where motor vehicles are moving is not a safe place for kids to bike unsupervised. Sorry, I know this will rankle some forum members – but I really don't care.

Children lack the context and experience to safely navigate roadways shared with motor vehicles. Period. Full-stop.

A child on a bike is focused on anything and everything except looking out for traffic. All ages.

When I was growing up, riding my bike around my neighborhood, I had countless close calls with cars. Not because the drivers were inattentive, but because I was a kid – and oblivious.

My brother, at 15, was killed by a car on his bike – in our neighborhood. Head trauma. The car was going less than 15mph. He darted suddenly from one side of the lane to the other and didn't realize a car was right behind him.

Maelochs

I started riding in the street around my house on a tricycle when i was three .... got a bike with training wheels the next year, training wheels came off the year after. By eight I was riding to the local library, supermarket, ice cream shop, etc and to school, on public roads. The next year i got a paper route and delivered papers by bike---and road all over the entire town---at nine or ten ......

Your experiences color your perceptions, mine color mine ... that's fine. I started actual Road-riding at the age of eight and still do it. And I was in no way a particularly attentive or coordinated child (nor am I as an adult)... I just learned how to walk and ride in the presence of automobiles.

Chacun a son gout.

big john

I suppose one could make that argument but it's tough to prove. Cyclist deaths in the U.S. seem to be hovering around 800 per year and injuries around 50,000.
I haven't seen any data on number of cyclists involved or miles traveled per incident or anything like that.

The other thing is no tech can save a cyclist from a drunk or distracted driver. A good friend was killed by a drunk a few years back, as well as another friends wife and two members of my road club were killed by distracted drivers. Many drivers don't take driving seriously and never think about other people.

I'm sorry to read about your brother. My brother was hit by a 16 year old driver in a crosswalk when he was about 12. She swooped around the stopped cars and nailed him near the curb. Fortunately he survived but with some lifelong issues.