it's hip to be aware

This post was born as a response to the following comment. I started composing a succint reply, but as I collected my thoughts, a monsoon of ideas poured out. Rather than limit myself, the magic of the internet allowed me to paste it into a post.The original comment.

My reply:

By "these stories," you must mean the Register-Guard's effort to stay abreast of the rise in fixed-gear biking, as I was also interviewed in their bike polo story.

I suppose this is because I am involved, approachable and eager to inform, with hopes to breed bike involvement in the community. Unfortunately, this has been limited to the fixed-gear "scene:" I spent a few minutes trying to talk to Matt Cooper of the 'Guard about the cargo bike, but none of this appeared in the story. They even cropped it out of the photo. I suppose this is what happens when you're working with ink and paper. (To be fair, bloggers are known for being verbose; look at this post-length comment.)

Here's to hoping that next time, we're all the "man on the street," and "these stories" are the media's efforts to cover rising interest in bikes in general.

Bike culture in America continues to change; it's not just for children, athletes, and hippies.
Bikes are hip. Two examples.
1.) Bikes are actually cool things for twentysomethings to tool around on. The fixed-gear is today's muscle car. Thirty-five years ago, we were doing basically the same thing with cars—playing chicken, racing in the street, etc.
2.) Bikes are a way of keeping up with the Joneses. I can already hear one spouse murmur to another across the pillow: "Did you hear? The neighbors traded their Prius for a Velorbis! Do you think we can we afford a Bakfiets?"

Okay, one more example and I'm going to bed. How many bicycle manufacturers petitioned Congress for a bailout? Oh, wait—that's right—zero. The bicycle industry is one of the few to experience a very real, very non-bubblicious boom in this recession. Lane of Cetma Racks tells me he's moving to a new warehouse. Look at his website and you'll see he is also in the process of rebranding his business to accomodate new products, including bags, forks and complete bikes.

Oh, and one more thing.