The bike industry is a victim of its own love affair with itself. The bicycle industry should quit dreaming about how to wake the whole world up to how perfect the bike is. Bikes are a beautiful and useful thing, but not everyone is going to ride them. So figure out who are the people who WILL ride them and go after them with all you got.

Boy I am really ranting and raving here. But I believe I have an extremely important point, and I hope somebody understands what I am trying to say. Especially you, Tim Grahl. I don’t know you, but I like you and admire you.

One fact that the bicycle indusry must take into account is that bicycles will not be the answer for all people. Most people who live in very cold areas will not ride year round. Most people who live in very hilly areas will not ride at all.

Most answers for better transportation must come from the auto industry. I know that does not inspire hope, but it is the truth. I am not saying there is nothing the bicycle industry can do, but they must be realistic and focused in their efforts.

With that in mind the bicycle industry should target the places where they can have the most and easiest success. Flat terrain areas with moderate weather should be attacked with all the bicycle industry’s strength.

When you are faced with an enormous challenge, you have to carve out progress as soon as possible so that you have something to build on.

Giant, Specialized, Trek and whoever else should join forces to do whatever it takes to transform one major US city into a “bicycle city”. As I said, a massive population area with mostly flat terrain and moderate weather.

That is my two cents, plus some.

There are some key gems here – like cycling as a whole being cool to the ipod generation.

Like for all enthusiast based minority activities, as existing cyclists we are the worst offenders !! To get more people riding bikes we must avoid jargon and ‘in-terms’ which we automatically do with each other to sort of signal ‘we are in the club’ … who reading this hasn’t don this in a bike shop ? . We must be much more tolerant about what is ‘right’ .. by this I mean not passing on the volumes of ‘folk law’ heard in cycling circles and dedicated forums, mainly aimed at getting the last 9/10ths performance … ie this frame or that gear is better than this or that, this posture is better etc. etc. [ better for who ?? the racer, the older lady, the fashionista ?? ].

Like they said in the video, we must emphasise the fun and the cool, and not the competitiveness … keeping a 20+mph average, this bike/tyre/gear etc. is faster than that ….. maybe important for the enthusiast but totally off putting for the returning or non-cycling person.

I hope you can do more of these video discussions, maybe include an opinionated non – or ex-cyclist too

Let the production value go. The message is in the words. The Bottom Line is that cycling suffers at the hands of the car culture in the US. We need bike lanes, bike racks, commuting credits, signs, driver education and so on.

This is a slow process and all input is important and if it hits one person right than it is worth it.

Coming from a British campaigning perspective I’ve seen how discussions can take place in a vacuum which doesn’t include influence from where what we’re trying to achieve has already been achieved.

Cycling is definitely “culturally correct” here in Assen. The 63000 inhabitants of this city make around 70000 journeys by bike each day. All types of people can be seen cycling, from young to old, men and women, all races, and this is true whatever the weather.

The wonderful infrastructure that we have here no doubt influences the use of bikes. We are organising a Study Tour this year for campaigners to see the way that cycling works in this country. There are details of that and also photos and videos linked from here:
http://hembrow.eu/cycling/studytour.html

It is interesting to note that you might feel accused. Please be sure that I only wanted to point out that your first post was negative and in a manner that I felt was unfair to Tim Grahl. I responded in kind.

Perhaps this second missive of yours should have been the first? It would have been far more descriptive of your concerns than the first, as I read it.

Be that as it may, I can certainly agree that the content presented in the video was very worthy of consideration even if the means of presenting it was some what lacking. At least it’s here for discussion.

And with that, I would like to read some other thoughts from folks out there. I’ll be checking back………..

…personally, i benefited from listening to tim parr because i originally questioned why he & sky yeager, someone who i consider to have a brilliant ‘bicycle’ mind, would design such a limited range of trendy bikes…now i better understand & give props to their focus & marketing strategy as i’d never heard it discussed before…by the same token, joe breeze is directing his energies to the common person of a different taste, w/ his new ‘attitude’ bike, which has a ‘cool’ appeal for that commuting segment…

…guitar ted, i don’t have the need (or desire) to go to interbike every year, but my first one was long ago & yes, i’m quite familiar w/ the big glass box known as the ‘media center’…
…you’d be foolish to believe, even for a minute that any of the ‘message’ was lost on me & while i made a point about the sound quality, you yourself acquiesce to it being ‘problematic’…
…if you review the tape, you’ll notice brad quartuccio, the man in the middle w/ the microphone in his hand, tries to follow the conversation back & forth & as time goes on, basically just holds it in his lap…i can’t blame him, it shouldn’t be his job as he is a valuable contributer to the discussion…

…being someone who worked within the industry for a major cycling company & as one who still keeps a finger on the pulse of the biz, i heartily applaud tim grahl’s efforts & if anything, my concern was more in favor of both his & the industry’s success…
…anything being discussed on that tape will have it’s ultimate affect as applied to those who aren’t yet serious cyclists…the idea is to continue to sell to those already involved but at the same time to find ways of broadening the marketing appeal of cycling…
…unlike a lot of industries, the benefit of an expanded cycling industry is greater than just financial solvency w/ in the biz, in that we all benefit by the ‘quality of life’ factor as more people involve themselves…
…ideally it might even become a safer society to become a cyclist in…

…anyway, this as opposed to my first post, may be described as a diatribe, sir, but i venture to say it is, in general, a more positive one than your last accusatory remarks…

Secondly, I have been looking online at the media produced from The Detroit Auto Show. I think you can agree that the auto industry is mega times more flush with cash than the cycling industry. (One look at any of the car “introductions” would be enough evidence of this fact) The media that covers the auto industry is a multi-million dollar entity, vastly outstripping anything the cycling industry can even fathom or realize. So, as an appologist for the “poor experience” you had listening to the video from Interbike, all I can say is let’s look at this realistically.

Finally, with a moniker of “bikesgonewild”, I would suppose that you would be willing to glean out the important information here and consider it as a fan of cycling to help further the sport that I am assuming you are interested in. Instead we get a diatribe about sound quality. Yes, the sound is problematic, but I feel you are missing the message, which I believes trancends the production here.

Perhaps you disagree, but I am hopeful you don’t.

The key is the ideas presented and I don’t think sound quality (which isn’t too bad in my opinion) diminishes what these guys have to say.