Today's economy: Bicycles over horsepower

By Robert Rogers

It's hard pinpoint a specific tipping point. Was it $4 per gallon? $4.50?

Scott McAfee, owner of Don's Bikes in Rialto, isn't sure what the magic price level was that propelled business from merely strong to cashier-busting mania, but he isn't complaining.

"In the last two to three weeks, something unprecedented has been happening, like we've hit a threshold," McAfee said. "We have all kinds of new customers coming in, and all the talk in the shop is about transportation and gas prices.

If a rising tide lifts all boats, McAfee's and other area bike shops are proving that stormy economic seas give select businesses a tremendous lift.

Amid a slumping economy bogged by record fuel costs and wallet-sapping inflation, area bicycle retailers are reporting strong and often record revenue growth.

Some shop owners, and economists observing the phenomenon, suggest that residents long accustomed to cheap fuel, thirsty engines and lengthy commutes are adjusting en masse to the reality of high gasoline costs.

McAfee said long and short term trends have buoyed his business. For the last three years, he said, revenues have steadily grown to record levels at the 50 year-old business despite housing and energy strains on the economy.

But suddenly, growth is ratcheting to new highs. May was the biggest month ever, McAfee said. June's receipts will probably smash May. Customers are streaming in grousing about gas prices and leaving with light, affordable, no-frills bikes designed to get them from point A to point B.

Gas prices last week as of June 13 have shot to $4.56 for regular in the Inland Empire, according to AAA, up from $3.92 one month ago.

There is ample evidence that Americans have undergone a fundamental shift in their everyday routines.

The Transportation Department reported last month that Americans drove 11 billion fewer miles in March 2008 than in March 2007, a decline of nearly 5 percent. The percentage drop is the largest ever recorded, and represents the first time traffic has dropped from one March to the next since 1979, a year of spiking energy costs and long gas lines.

Eric Nilsson, an economics professor at Cal State San Bernardino, said psychological factors play a role in prodding people to make microeconomic decisions that disrupt their normal lives, like switching to a bicycle for transportation. Whether cresting above the $4 per gallon barrier or the experience of $50 or $100 tank fill ups, many motorists have finally reached their points of action, Nilsson said.

Nilsson added that the move toward alternate transportation methods may have staying power, regardless of short term price perturbations. Unlike the 1970s, when high oil prices were largely the result of moves by Middle Eastern suppliers, this time the causes are more diffuse and the solutions more centered around personal choices.

"There is more of a social cache to conservation today," Nilsson said. "Far from surrendering or giving in to oil costs, the person who rides a bike or buys a hybrid car is seen as smart and resourceful."

It all has bicycle shops rejoicing, and looking forward to long-term public policy shifts toward making communities more compact and reconfigured for bicycle commuting.

"This growth in cycling is amazing, but what's really going to sustain this is going to be a change in local infrastructure to include more and wider bike lanes and bike friendly streets," said Ramon Gonzalez, store manager of Cyclery USA in Redlands.

Like McAfee, Gonzalez said his store has been swamped in recent weeks by young professionals and working class men and women alike. Minimalist transportation bikes are hot sellers, Gonzalez said, as are bags and baskets to haul work attire and other personals. Repairs and tune-ups are up also, as many fed-up commuters dig old bikes out of storage.

"We think a lot of younger people are choosing to make lifestyle changes," Gonzalez said. "That's good for our industry."