Michael Tobis had a post today about Lance Armstrong’s plans for an 18,000-square-foot bike shop in Austin that seems, at least in part, to be marketed at the bike commuter:
“This city is exploding downtown. Are all these people in high rises going to drive everywhere? We have to promote (bike) commuting…”
The thing is, as I mentioned on Michael’s blog, you don’t really need an expensive bike shop (and expensive bike gear) for bike commuting. But you do need it to promote a consumer culture surrounding bike commuting. And it may be that, in order to make bike commuting work for those same upscale people who drive expensive cars when cheap cars would do just as well, you need to create an upscale consumer culture around bike commuting to make the whole thing work.
So I guess this is a good thing.
Unless, of course, they make carbon fiber bikes.
LP – 🙂
That was the joke I was going for, actually, one half of my headline pun (humor is hard, eh?). ‘Cause you definitely don’t need carbon fiber bikes to commute.
They say that great minds think alike. But in this case, you should be worried — because I definitely don’t have a great mind.