new fangled bikes

Now it seems to me that the real problem is that kids can drive cars on video games and they have stopped ridin their bikes!


Nation’s love of bike riding is going flat

Safety concerns, video games, car pools keep children away

By Niki Kelly

The Journal Gazette


COLUMBIA CITY – In years past, a hot day called for children to perch atop bicycles of all colors and shapes – the wind whipping ponytails back and forth as riders careened down the street, destination unknown.

Maybe a stop at the local mom-and-pop grocery for a favorite candy. Or, to the park for ball practice. Sometimes a trip across town to visit a friend.

Nowadays, the once-familiar sight of a gaggle of kids riding their bikes around the neighborhood is fading into American folklore.

Kids instead walk to the local pool or hop on a motorized scooter. Better yet, they don’t leave the house at all, lounging instead in the air conditioning – fingers numb from hours of playing video games.

“It seems to me that if you think about the psychology of the bicycle, youngsters used to see learning to ride as a way of expressing themselves as people. It was freedom,” said Richard Hess, a 58-year-old Fort Wayne resident. “You got on the bike with a couple of other kids and you had a sense of being in control.

“It gives them an opportunity to get away and be themselves. If they aren’t doing that, it’s unfortunate because they are really missing a step in their development.”

Hess belongs to a generation of adults who spent their adolescent years scurrying around their hometowns on a bicycle.

So did 48-year-old David Coar, who carried his love to pedal into his job as manager at Summit City Bicycles & Fitness. And Chuck Bash, a 55-year-old Fort Wayne man who still does a century every year on his bike (that’s 100 miles in one day).

“When I was a kid we spent the day on the bike,” Coar said. “I could go all over town between 10 and 14 years old with all of my friends. We did everything on bicycles.”

But those days are gone.

What once was a child’s only mode of transportation has been replaced by Mom and Dad carpooling kids to school and other activities.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in 2003 that 71 percent of parents with school-age children rode their bikes to school when they were younger, compared to only 18 percent of their children.

“It’s not gone, but it’s certainly not prevalent. Kids in general don’t ride the way they used to,” said Stephen Madden, editor-in-chief at Bicycling Magazine. “I absolutely remember those days. We used to pretend our bikes were fire engines or police cars and ride all over the place putting out fires. We would be gone for hours, riding out of the city and into the suburbs to see big houses and fields. I want my kids to have that same experience.”

Statistics show that likely won’t happen.

Lou Mazzante, senior editor at Bicycle Retailer and Industry News, said bicycle sales have been flat for several years, bouncing between $15 million and $20 million annually.

But there has been a precipitous drop in youth or juvenile bikes, he said, pointing to a 25 percent decline in 2003.

The National Sporting Goods Association conducts an annual participation study, which showed bike riders dropping from 53 million people in 1996 to about 36 million people in 2003 – almost 32 percent.

Additional statistics show that only 15,128 children ages 7 to 17 rode bicycles six times or more last year, a decline of about 24 percent in the past decade.

There are a host of reasons – among them safety concerns, increased traffic and lazier children – why young people aren’t out and about on their bikes anymore.

“Parents are just worried,” Mazzante said. “It’s just fear. Of falling down, getting hit, getting kidnapped. They want to protect their kids.”

Even those who cherish childhood memories atop their favorite bike say today’s society is a different place than when they were growing up.

“There are a bunch of reasons,” Madden said. “Kids are much more scheduled than they used to be, so there isn’t time to ride between school and piano lessons and baseball. Another part of it is the number of miles of roadway has not increased a whole lot but the number of cars has doubled, so there aren’t as many safe places for kids to ride.”

That’s why bicycle purists advocate more bike trails and special bike lanes on highways and busy streets.

Still, with more cars on the road than ever, bicycle fatalities resulting from vehicle crashes were down 9 percent in 2002, to 660 deaths nationwide. And 85 percent of those deaths involved bicyclists who weren’t wearing a helmet. More than three-quarters of the deaths were riders 16 or older.

In Indiana, there were nine bicycle fatalities in 2002, including two from ages 5 to 15. Indiana has no helmet law.

“I used to ride my bike a few miles at a time, but now I would never consider letting (my daughter) ride that far,” said Nancy Rinehart, of Columbia City. “Things are a lot faster than they used to be. There are more cars and less patience.”

Huntington mother Belinda Ritenour is also concerned. She let her now-grown daughter ride all over Roanoke when growing up. But she doesn’t support the same freedom for her three grandchildren living in Huntington.

“It’s a mom’s paranoia,” she said. “There are more threats to children and too many things go on.”

Others say less bike riding is just another symptom of a bigger problem – lazier, more overweight kids.

“Our competition is video games,” Coar said of bike sales. “It’s too easy for kids to just sit on their can and not do anything.”

Bash said the phenomenon doesn’t end with bikes.

“Kids aren’t doing a whole lot of other things like they used to, either. They’re not outside playing tag or basketball,” he said. “They are sitting inside watching TV.”

Or they have turned to motorized scooters, all-terrain vehicles and miniature motorbikes instead.

“It’s much more fun to just sit on a four-wheeler and gas it up,” Ritenour said.

Skateboards are also popular. Thirteen-year-old Chase Langeloh spent one day last week skateboarding at the park in Columbia City. He says he rides his skateboard every day and his bike only once or twice a month. In fact, he recently gave it to his 7-year-old brother.

“I got all my friends into skateboarding. It’s a lot more forgiving – if you wreck, you’re not going to kill yourself,” he said.

Then there’s Trenton Rowe, 14, of South Whitley. He also spent part of last week doing tricks at the skate park. Only he rode a bicycle.

“I ride my bike every day it’s not raining,” he said.