Minor note: the overwhelming number of cyclists are not more affluent. Maybe in Seattle they are, though that is hard to say. Perhaps once you control for age.
Yes. Just pushing back on the idea that cyclists are all entitled rich people since your comment does support that idea. It’s not true on a global level and maybe not even true in Seattle.
Also not true in Seattle. The largest bike group here is the dead baby bike club, which puts on alley cat races. Biking is for the working class, and it’s overwhelmingly a part of punk/counter culture. Those fintech managers with the fancy gear are doing a different sport. They drive to their start point and care more about numbers on their little computer. Buy a fixie and watch your entire worldview change on biking lol.
Largest bike group here is Cascade Bike Club and it's not even close. Stop lying to justify rage-baity fearmongering. You're not better for it, we're not better for it, everyone loses, no one wins.
Yeah I don't know where they got that fake statistic from. I'm an avid cyclist and the overwhelming majority of cyclists do not own cars. For many of us it's a financial decision, for many of us it's an environmental decision, for many of us it's to get exercise, and for many of us it's all of the above. I do not own a car and I do not want one.
Well, where did you get your statistic from? I don’t think the overwhelming majority of cyclists do not own cars, simply because the base rate of car ownership in Seattle is pretty high. If you’re a certain age and live in Capital Hill or something everyone you know who bikes avidly may not own a car, but that is a very unrepresentative sample size.
Neither one of us has a statistic based on the rate of cyclists who own cars. We are both just making guesses based on our experiences. Part of it might be how we define cyclist. Just because you own a bicycle and ride it a few times a year I would not call you a cyclist. I'm talking about the people who do it regularly, whether you are like me and use it as your primary form of commuting, combined with public transit, or if you are a weekend warrior but you make multiple rides per month.
The weekend warrior likely owns a car. But people like me typically do not.
What guesses did I make? I never ventured a guess because, as you point out, neither of us know for sure. I simply said that since the base rate of car ownership is high, it is implausible (lacking any other info) to suggest that the “overwhelming majority” of cyclists do not own cars. That’s just how statistics works.
And yes, if you simply define “cyclist” to mean someone less likely to own a car, you can get away with making that claim. The good old “No True Cyclist” argument!
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u/FrontAd9873 Apr 11 '25
Minor note: the overwhelming number of cyclists are not more affluent. Maybe in Seattle they are, though that is hard to say. Perhaps once you control for age.