Comments on: Bike Shops See Boom Amid Rising Consumer Costs

By: Quinn

Quinn — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 18:04:41 +0000

Here in Reno, people are starting to realize that even the $12-$1500 bikes are affordable now, and even more popular, in this area people are pulling out their 10/15 year old treks/GTs/etc. and getting them fixed up. I favorite LBS’s main income this summer actually has been tune ups and maintainence.

By: jamesmallon

jamesmallon — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 15:31:36 +0000

Wake up people: “Peak Oil” is a peak in cheap oil. There is plenty of carbon to make oil from: tar sands, coal-oil gsaification that the Nazis had to resort to, etc. It’s more expensive, but it’s not cutting edge tech.

By: Juan

Juan — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 15:03:56 +0000

I think we are a far way off from having a world where oil is not used, but I agree with Adriel about removing some of these subsidies and not lowering the cost of gasoline. Higher bicycle sales is one indication that people are finally starting to think about alternative transportation, because like CJ said, money makes the world go round. If gasoline comes down, everyone will go back to their same wasteful ways, and bicycle sales will fall.

By: Ghost Rider

Ghost Rider — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 14:41:44 +0000

Ethanol…ugh. Sure, put the profits in the hands of “Big Agriculture” rather than “Big Oil”. It’s hardly a solution, especially when corn is the choice of plant material used to extract the ethanol from.

By: Stuart M.

Stuart M. — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 05:52:33 +0000

Hey Mike, I am a Peak Oil true believer, too. In the long run the oil is going to run out. But at some point substitutes will become competitive. In 2007 ethanol production in America reduced oil imports by 8 billion gallons and Merrill Lynch just said in June that world biofuel availability has cut $21 from the price of a barrel of oil. I love bicycling and I hope this current boom isn’t just a brief transitional period between the oil economy and some substitute-based economy. But I don’t think we are headed back to Stone Age, pre-industrial, pre-oil world economy.

By: Mike Myers

Mike Myers — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 01:45:09 +0000

Adriel—I understand what you’re saying, but every aspect of our economy is dependent on oil. Food doesn’t grow without oil. It doesn’t get to market without oil. It isn’t packaged without oil. Oil is pervasive. There is no replacement on the horizon. Look around you right now. You typing on a plastic keyboard? In front of a monitor in a plastic case? Pervasive.

I don’t see any replacement for natural gas based fertilizers or diesel fuel any time soon.

It would be nice if TPTB would have invested in some tech about 50 years ago, but they didn’t and now we have to deal with the consequences.

By: Adriel

Adriel — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 21:47:08 +0000

(The 700 billion dollars is the profit from oil sales).

By: Adriel

Adriel — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 21:46:25 +0000

One of the reasons prices are going up is inflation. One of the reasons for inflation is the money we are spending on “oil wars” and the 700 Billion dollars we are sending overseas every year that is not coming back. Higher Gas prices may hurt at first, but the market will correct itself. Doing nothing and sending all of our assets to the Persian Gulf is never going to help the US economy.

By: Mike Myers

Mike Myers — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 21:35:32 +0000

I’m torn. America is so dependent on gasoline that prices coming down are both a good and bad thing. It’s good because the prices of everything should come down. We are such a spread out nation and the places we live are far from where our food is grown and goods are produced.

It’s bad because if prices come down then there is no incentive for change. People will keep driving and technology will not progress.

By: Adriel

Adriel — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 20:47:07 +0000

Now if we could just repeal those oil subsidies that are artificially making gasoline so cheap. The market would be allowed to correct itself. I think I heard that gasoline should be about $9/gallon without the subsidies. Oh and we need to make sure GM and Ford do not get 25 Billion dollars to “develop alternative energy”

If we give it to them, they will waste it and come back with “well, alternative energy just isn’t possible”.

(They might even spend some of it on FUD to convince everyone that biking there is not practical).