PeopleForBikes is leading the charge to better understand and grow the base of people who ride bikes in America. In support of this work, our new blog series explores what the latest research tells us about who’s riding, how often, and why it matters for the future of bicycling and the bike industry.

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Why Bicycling Participation Matters and What’s Next

In our previous blog, we discussed the growth in bicycling participation across the U.S. and the fact that this increase in ridership is primarily driven by those who ride infrequently (a couple of times a month or less). In this installment of our participation blog series, we will talk more about who these casual riders are and how we can further engage them to support industry growth.

Demographically, casual riders are younger, more likely to be female, and less likely to be white than those who ride more often. In other words, casual riders look a lot more like the rest of the U.S. population (more diverse) than the core ridership does. This is great news for an industry that has historically struggled to diversify our participant base.

Casual riders also differ from their more active counterparts psychologically. Casual riders are less likely than enthusiasts to be familiar and satisfied with places to ride that are close to home and less likely to say that they feel safer riding now than they did five years ago. Perceptions that are clearly related.

Yet, casual and core riders report very similar attitudes in other aspects of riding. Nearly all riders, core and casual alike, want to ride more often and more than half of both groups worry about their safety around motor vehicles.

So what does all of this mean for the bike industry? There is a huge opportunity to engage this growing base of casual riders — they are more diverse and want to ride more often. The best part? It is so much easier to get someone who already rides a little bit to ride more than it is to get someone who never rides to ride at all. So how do we engage these casual riders?

The most important thing we can do is build more great places to ride close to home. Having fun, safe, and accessible riding opportunities will encourage all riders to get out on their bikes more often, not just casual riders. This means not only comfortable bike networks that connect people to the places they want to go but also bike parks, pump tracks, and natural surface trails for recreational riding. Nearly all communities have unused public space and it doesn’t have to take a big investment to build quality bike amenities. Imagine how transformative it would be if everyone in the U.S were within a 10-minute ride of a fun bike park or trail.

But it isn’t enough just to build great places to ride, we also have to support casual riders in having positive ride experiences. Just after the pandemic, PeopleForBikes conducted a study to better understand those who started riding for the first time (or for the first time in a long time) during COVID. Nearly everyone in the study mentioned having someone who encouraged them to get on the bike and helped them find places to ride — not just once, but throughout the pandemic. Local shops, clubs, and teams are uniquely positioned to incentivize enthusiast riders to “adopt” new riders and show them the ropes.

If every enthusiast rider in the U.S. helped a single new or casual participant to ride just once a week over the next 12 months, we would see 45 million new enthusiast riders by this time next year.

Finally, we can better engage casual riders by meeting and embracing them where they are. Not everyone wants to ride four days a week or compete in races but that doesn’t mean they won’t love riding or that they won’t spend their money on bike gear. Welcoming all types of riders will create a strong, diverse, and healthy community of people who love to ride.

In the next post of this series, we’ll focus on another exciting finding from the PeopleForBikes Participation Study — more youth are riding. We’ll unpack what we see in the data and the implications for getting, and keeping, more kids on bikes.