2009: Year of the Bike

pic: Mick Stephenson

You heard it here first – or maybe you didn't, but who's to say we didn't start it? – 2009 is going to be the Year of the Bike.

The Chinese have it marked down as the Year of the Ox, a time of prosperity through fortitude and hard work, among other things. Read into that what you like; the fact is, those same Chinese are shovelling billions into bike production and even supporting Taiwan's efforts to do the same. Shimano reckon their bike division is the main thing keeping them in profit through these perilous times. After decades of decline, bike use is on the up again and looks to be one of the very few global growth industries this year. Bike production has outstripped car production year-on-year since the late 70s and while big-name motor manufacturing dies an ugly death, big bike makers like Giant are forecasting increased profits for 2009 in the face of huge increases in metal stock prices.

The way I see it, we have the advent of mountain bikes to thank for the turnaround; as well as being totally cool they provide the freedom to ride wherever you like and pretty much however you like, away from increasingly lethal roads. Injecting new life blood into cycling, dirt riding gave way to BMX and street riding took off from there; meanwhile offroad cycle tracks joined up with suburban cycle lanes and brought cyclists back in to town and city centres. The other big factors – Green issues, health concerns, rising fuel costs – became bundled into government policy actively promoting bike use pretty much all over the developed world.

So are bikes back to reclaim the roads? Fat chance. But there is a definite trend in that direction. There's something about transporting ourselves around that follows a weird pattern: just as adding a lane to a motorway only increases traffic in proportion, so the more road space the government give to cyclists, the more bikes will magically appear to fill it. And the more cyclists there are on the roads, the safer those roads become to ride, which encourages more cyclists, and so on.

There's a definite movement here which has all come together in the last year or so; it's up to cyclists everywhere to seize the moment, get the old steed out of the shed and show the world a fresh pair of legs. Better still, mark the occasion in style: nothing inspires you to ride more than a new bike... it might not happen overnight, but the time to get on yer bike and be counted is NOW – the Year of the Bike is here.