On 2 May 2003 21:18:59 -0700,
[email protected] (Edward Dolan) wrote:
>You argue quite extensively about how the market and what the majority think and want may not
>always be correct. That is irrelevant. Rightness or correctness has nothing to do with it.
It's not irrelevant, but rather telling as to why the masses 'want' a low-cost 'commodity' bike. A
lower cost bike is perhaps the perfect bike to ride three or four times a year and otherwise sit
unused in the garage... Anyone have statistics on the average miles per year per bike in the US?
>But [recumbents] are an old invention and, like Mr. Cottrell stated, they have been around for
>70 years.
The 70 years is a bit of a red herring...
All current recumbent bike designs are somewhat less than 70 years old. That $500 10kg carbon
low-racer still isn't around! %^)
Anyone know how long recumbent bikes actually have been widely commercially available? Depending on
the definition of "widely available", I'd say perhaps as few as 10-20 years (or less). Even for the
not widely available, manufactuer-direct sold recumbents, it's been probably less well than 35 years
for most...
Just because there are hurtles to marketing recumbents doesn't mean that someone might not come up
with a model or campaign that would increase their sales. For all their faults, BikeE went some way
to "popularizing" recumbents and making them more widely available.
>You may like to tilt at windmills, I don't.
Not sure which windmills you mean,-- I thought we were discussing why recumbents represent only a
small percent of bike sales. Saying they've had 70 years and still people simply don't "want"
them seems to ignore other factors... I don't see recognizing these complexities as attacking
imaginary giants.
I consider my self no knight errant, bit if I were, who'd be my Sancho Panza? %^)
I do wax Quixotic from time to time, particularly when it has to do with environmentalism, wildland
conservation, human rights, civil liberties, and certain "routine" neonatal elective surgical
procedures. In these and other areas, there's seeming little enlightenment accounting for popular
beliefs or values. That's human.
With respect to Fab's crowd, there are probably more recreational recumbent riders than there are
top-level competitive bicycle racers. That he purports to imagine we all would want to emulate his
sporting achievements is only mildly amusing. Bit of a single trick pony...
Jon Meinecke
