A Quiet Velorution is Taking Place

The Breezer Citizen U-frame town bike. Run an errand in style.

Covering Interbike 2007, the largest bicycle trade show in North America, Wired magazine notices an emerging trend:

Some people believe that, right now, a quiet revolution is taking place. In cities like London, San Francisco, Boston and New York, the ranks of bicycle riders are swelling with the rise of a new breed: the urban biker.

Traffic snarls, soaring gas prices and worries about global warming have prompted a big boost in cycling, affecting even places like Los Angeles — America’s freeway capital — that have traditionally given bicycles the cold shoulder.

“What’s really happened in the past year is a cultural shift,” says Monica Howe, 31-year-old outreach coordinator for the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition.

At Interbike 2007, the bicycle industry’s giant annual trade show, the shift toward the urban rider is loudly evident. Fancy road and mountain bikes are clearly no longer king of the roost — or road. It’s the scads of fixed-gear, town, single-speed and other urban bicycles that are drawing the crowds.