Let’s Make Bicycling Colorful Again

A photo of Ms. McGowan, linked in from her website. ©Ayesha McGowan

On April 6th, 2018 Bicycling Magazine took a break from telling its readers they needed the latest $10,000 super bike to post an article by Ayesha McGowan.  The article is about diversity, or more correctly, the lack of diversity within the cycling community.

Before going any further take a few moments to read Ms. McGowan’s article.

Ms. McGowan’s article is so powerful not only because she points to a real problem in the bicycling world, but includes relatively simple fixes to these problems.  While the article is aimed at the corporate/industrial side of bicycling, the fact of the matter is that bicycling is more than Specialized’s graphics department.  It’s all of us that use bicycles and love bicycles, whether we ride to work or on the trail.

What are other ways that the industry and us, as cyclists, can help ensure cycling appeals to everyone?

​What the industry can do

Let’s stop trying to sell dentists another bike.  It’s easy to pick on magazines like Bicycling for having pages of $10,000 bikes with glowing reviews arguing that 3mm shorter chainstays means you need to sell your previous $10,000 bike and get this one.  But the fact of the matter is, these bikes are being provided by the companies.  Those reviewers know who is paying the bills.  They aren’t likely to suggest they would prefer to review a much more budget friendly bike as that would mean their jobs.

Open up a copy of Bicycle Retailer and there is a disturbing trend:  The amount of money the industry makes as stayed relatively steady, but the number of bikes sold is dropping.  Why?  Because for years, the industry has tried to sell different bikes to the same people.  You need a 29er, you need a fat bike, you need a gravel bike, you are getting older, you need an e-MTB.  Oh, we changed the axle standard (again) and won’t be making spare parts, so you’ll need to buy a whole new bike (again) when the hub implodes.  There is only so many times a company or companies can dip in that well before customers either get tired of it and just stop buying or realize that contentment isn’t a bad thing.

Basically, the industry needs to stop trying to sell to the same dentist and start reaching out to the very people that Ms. McGowan is talking about missing from the industry’s marketing material.  And to appeal to those people, the industry is going to have to change the focus of its R & D efforts.  Which leads us to…

Let’s make the “blue collar” bikes better.  Walk into a bike shop and find any $500 bike.  What do you notice about it.  Well, it likely has a drivetrain straight from the year 2000.  The brakes, either mechanical or cheapy hydraulic, function about as well as Fred Flinestone’s feet.

Here is the thing: those $500 bikes are the ones a lot of people, including kids in NICA programs and the very people Ms. McGowan is asking you to reach out to, can actually afford.  Unfortunately, race is the biggest determiner in the economic purchasing power of a person.  That great-X-grandchild of slaves living in Mississippi can’t afford the $2,000 hardtail 29er, even with the NICA discount.  But they can work a summer bagging groceries and afford the $500 one. Why not make sure that $500 bike is going to be usable, not frustrating to own/repair and makes them a future customer of your brand?

Yet, to create better bikes in the “blue-collar” price range, $500-$1000, bike companies are going to have to shift some R & D dollars and put pressure on component manufacturers to make better low-end components.

It’s not impossible, as these components already exist or could exist with little work.  As an example, TRP makes a brilliant family of symmetrical mechanical brakes (the Spyre for road bikes, Spykes for mountain bikes) that stop better than every low end hydraulic brake on the market and every other mechanical brake on the market.  Why isn’t Trek, Specialized or Giant making a phone call to Tektro (the parent company of TRP) and seeing what the very special price would be on thousands of units of these brakes?  Another example.  Nearly every sub-$1000 bike is carting around a 3x9 drivetrain that can double as a boat anchor.  Why?  Both Shimano & Sram make 1x drivetrains.  If Trek, Specialized or Giant came to these companies and asked for a 1x drivetrain that met the budget constraints of a blue collar bike, they aren’t likely to turn them down.  (Side note: Sunrace already makes affordable wide range drivetrains in 1x9, 1x10 & 1x11 setups.)

The canard that is often thrown out is it’s not possible due to economics of scale.  Yet, Trek, Specialized and Giant all have these same companies produce custom drivetrain and suspension components for their high-end bikes, which sell in smaller numbers than the cheaper bikes.  Therefore, per a unit all these custom parts are far more expensive.  Fox, Shimano and Sram aren’t creating custom fork tuning or branded cranks out of the goodness of their heart, they are getting paid.  So instead of pushing that money into a custom fork offset in your uber bike that sells less than a hundred units a year, why not pay them to create good components that are affordable, would be somewhat close in weight to their mid-range components and allow you to create decent “blue collar” bikes?

If you are reading this as a bike industry executive, do you think following the (great) advice of Ms. McGowan and altering your marketing outreach to a more diverse group is going to matter if those persons can’t afford the bikes you make?

​What we (as cyclists) can do

Cyclists come in every flavor, so let’s make our outreach not just about the vanilla one.  It might be easy to assume all cyclists ride the same way or enjoy the same type of riding that is popular in your area.  But the fact of the matter is that the greatest number of cyclists aren’t hipsters in bike lanes.  They are poor people (which is almost always synonymous with “minority”) who bike because it’s the best way to get around on their budget.  These invisible cyclists are far greater in number that post-college kids in skinny jeans.

Let’s be blunt about this: far too many bike advocacy organizations and club’s group photos look more like the Aryan ideal than a diverse group making cycling better for everyone.  It’s not a perception that is lost on those like Ms. McGowan and like the very groups of people she was suggesting that bicycling include in its outreach.   For many of them there are activities or locations that are “white spaces”, where they just aren’t welcome.  Cycling isn’t a “white space”, but you wouldn’t know that from the people who are advocating for cycling.  As an example, how can a bike advocacy organization address fears of gentrification when discussing bike lanes or fears of racial profiling when discussing Vision Zero if everyone in that organization looks like the gentrifiers and the profilers?  If you don’t have any low income or immigrant members in your advocacy organization, how can you know the needs of that community?

Could this photo be what all the members of your local bike advocacy organization look like?

But if you want to reach outside the “young, white, artsy” crowd for bike advocacy, that means you are going to have to…

Back cycling projects that actually help the most amount of people or people that really need it.  You often see bike advocacy groups pushing for bike lanes, claiming these bike lanes will help everyone.  If that is true, then why do a lot of bike lanes seem to stop before they get to “that part of town”?

An example of the effects of not thinking about who needs the help most: one of the poorest sections of New York City is the neighbor on the edge of   Melrose-Morrisania in South Bronx with a median home income of $8,694.  (Even if you include all of Melrose, the income only goes up to $22,987.)  Want to guess how many bike lanes run through the area?  Two; one on Melrose, the other on St. Anns Avenue.  Park Slope in Brooklyn has been one of the hottest housing markets in New York for some time and now has a median income of $126,073.  Want to guess how many bike lanes run through that area?  East-West, one every 5 blocks, North-South, one every block.

Even with the awful bike infrastructure in Melrose-Morrisania, Google Maps shows its barely over an hour to get from there to south Manhattan.  Because of the gaps in the system the fastest way southward is the Hudson Greenway.  (The East Side Greenway would be a viable alternative if it didn’t have gaps.)  Getting to the Hudson Greenway requires crossing a lot of sketchy roadway, but it’s doable. Even then, it’s only 8 minutes longer than taking the subway to the same location.  That means properly motivated citizens of Melrose-Morriania, with a decent bike, could tap into the economic opportunity in Manhattan.  Think of all the opportunity, including educational ones, that could follow if there were better bike routes from one of the poorest parts of New York to one of the richest.  Mopping floors at Charles Schwab isn’t glamorous, but it earns you far more than $8,694 a year.  But how many articles have you read in Streetsblog or the Gothamist advocating for filling the gaps in the network from Melrose-Morrisania to Manhattan?

That is the point here.  It’s great bike advocates have added bike lanes all over New York City.  But as much success as there is, it sure is funny how those bike lanes aren’t where the people who would benefit the most from them live.  The people in Park Slope are fine people, but they aren’t somehow worthier of good walking, biking and commuting infrastructure than the people of Melrose-Morrisania.  If we, as cyclists, really care about people the way we say we do, maybe it’s time we started backing projects based on how many they help or based on the fact they help those that need it most.  The fact that these types of projects seem to find their way into only the parts of the city that look like a lot of bike advocacy organization’s group photos is proof that who is part of an organization determines who it helps.

​Now with more color

Ms. McGowan is right in so many ways.  But honestly, hiring more people for advertising photos that might have skin shades in tones other than eggshell isn’t enough.  If we read articles like the one she penned and say we believe in diversity, then let’s start acting like it.  That may mean having some uncomfortable conversations or coming to some uncomfortable realizations about ourselves.  It may mean we must start listening instead of talking.

​Most importantly, it means we are going to have to reorder our priorities.  For the bike industry, that means reaching out to new audiences for sales and creating decent bikes people in the audiences can afford instead of creating yet another $10,000 bike to have reviewers in Bicycling Magazine praise.  For us, as cyclists, we need to reach out to our neighbors and include them in a truly meaningful way into our organizations and backing projects that actually help everyone.

Thank you Ms. McGowan for your sobering words.