European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - May 10, 1990, Darmstadt, Hesse                                By John Barbour associated press Here they come thousands at a time pumping legs determined faces a Wheeling to work or to Market Wheeling for fitness or simply for fun. A bicycle is a very personal relatively inexpensive pollution free Mode of transportation and there Are 800 million of them in the world. But Are they relics of another Century or the wave of the future world watch Institute a think tank in Washington d.c., recently published its world watch paper 90 by Marcia d. Lowe. It called the bicycle a the vehicle for a Small  the message was that bicycles consume less Energy per passenger mile than any other form of transportation including walking. A cyclist can cover vhf Miles on the calories in an ear of Corn 10 Miles on the 350 calories in a bowl of Rice. Bicyclists do not produce smog or acid rain. They do not endanger the Ozone layer and few cyclists Are pulled Over for Riding while intoxicated. The United states has 88 Mil on bicycles 47 million of them owned by adults. It was 91 years ago that the bicycle craze crested in America. In 1 899, with automobiles not yet on the Road and Public transportation in its infancy More than a million bicycles were sold in the United states a population 76 million then. In the 1 74 years since the first Bike appeared on the scene in 1816, a lot has changed. The Bike has evolved from a crude contraption called the Hobby horse which was propelled by the riders feet on the ground to the enlarged front wheel that covered More ground for each revolution of the pedals to Chain drives and the safety bicycle and to today s Light one piece frames. Those safety bikes of the turn of the Century altered american fashions. Knickers kept pants legs out of the Way of Chain drives Long Norfolk jackets caught the mud and women began to Wear Shorter skirts and bloomers so they could ride their bikes in proper modesty. Fred Zahradnik of bicycling Magazine said the bicycle was a vehicle for Early technology too. The Wright Brothers were bicycle makers As were hundreds of other tinkerers of the late 1800s. Orville and Wilbur Wright experimented with lightweight tubing that eventually made their air plane design possible. Glenn Curtis worked on bicycles and applied motors to them before he concentrated on aircraft engine design. Eventually bikes gave us Ball bearings and pneumatic tires. Racing added to bicycling s popularity in the late 1 800s, when bicycle racers were some of the highest paid athletes in the country earning $20,000 to $40,000 a year. A they were like today s superstars Quot said Zahradnik Quot they travelled the world to  thousands flocked to see the six Day Bike races on wooden or Concrete tracks. At the turn of the Century there were some such 200 racetracks in America. In its heyday the Bike was seen As the Ideal form of transportation. A it did t have the Upkeep of a horse or the expense of a Carriage Quot Zahradnik said. Quot if the roads got bad you could pick it up and carry it. It was one of the fastest easiest simplest forms of  and the bicycle built roads. A Stream of complaints from bicyclists across the nation led to the first can 800 million bicyclists be wrong commuters bicycles fill a parking area in front of the train station in Brugge Belgium. A amps Jamos Sarheim modern surge of Road building. The bicycle paved the Way for the automobile. Oddly it was t the automobile that led to the fall of the bicycle. The culprit was Public transportation steam powered locomotives and the electric trolley. They were felled by the car. In the late 1800s, a Good Bike Cost about $100, which was expensive when the average income was $8 a week. Today some Are still As cheap As $100 some Are expensive As cars. The United states makes about 5 million bikes a year and imports 5 million More. A the United states has seven times As Many bicycles per person As India but because one out of every two americans owns an automobile a compared with one out of 500 indians a bicycles play a much More modest role in the . Transportation system Quot Lowe wrote. In China where one person in every 74,000 owns an automobile one in four owns a Bike. The country counts some 300 million of them. In one study in the Northern Industrial City of Tianjin monitors counted 50,000 bicycles passing one intersection in just one hour. The chinese phenomenon began when the last emperor up i began peddling around the forbidden City in the Early 1900s. Today China s annual Bike sales exceed 40 million a the rest of the developing world lags far behind in bicycle transportation Quot said world watch Quot in much of Africa and even More widely in latin America the prestige and Power of Auto ownership have made governments ignore pedal Power and led citizens to scorn the bicycle As a vehicle for the  there Are exceptions. In Bogota the capital of Colombia the City s largest bakery replaced most of its trucks with 900 delivery trikes to Supply 60,000 neighbourhood shops. In Europe the Netherlands and Denmark have taken Steps to make their roads More Friendly for cyclists including extensive Bike paths. As a result bicycles Are used for 20 percent to 30 percent of All Urban trips and up to half in some towns. In the Netherlands a recent system of taxes increased the Cost of buying and driving a car by half making bikes even More attractive. Odometer readings will be monitored anti Drivers will be taxed accordingly. In Denmark optic gals claim that gasoline prices Are the highest in Europe thanks to aggressive taxing. In fact said the world watch report Quot the danish ministry of transport describes the 1 86 percent sales tax on new cars a compared with 47 percent in the Netherlands and 5 percent in the United states As paying for three cars and getting Only  in Britain one out of every tour people owns a Bike yet Only one out of every 33 transport trips Are made by Bike a British study said that if Only 10 percent of car trips of less than 10 Miles were made by bicycle it would Cut the country s fuel consumption by 14 million barrels of Oil a year or by 2 percent of annual consumption. Ironies abound. Third world governments concentrate on building roads for cars in their Rural areas though their Rural citizens do not have cars or trucks. World watch quoted transportation expert Wilfred Owen Quot Many Miles of roads in poor countries prove More useful for drying Beans and peppers than for moving  and even though bicycle rickshaws Are a transportation mainstay in Many asian countries and a Means of raising the income and status of poor people some local governments say they Are unsafe or inhumane. World watch noted that the real problem probably is that the quaint rickshaws make cities look poor or backward. So it comes to pass that in Dhaka in Bangladesh the government threatened to phaseout rickshaws even though they employ 140,000 people and account for More than Haili the City s passenger Miles. And in Jakarta the capital of Indonesia some1 100,000 rickshaws have been confiscated in the last five years. Japan which makes cars for most of the world leans heavily on bicycles and commuter railroads. When railway terminals began to suffer from bicycle1 pollution the government set aside Bike parking lots of which there Are now 8,600 with a capacity of 2.4 million bikes. In Urban downtown areas where land prices Are More than $7,000 a Square foot they have built Bike parking towers. In California the University towns of Tivis and Palo Alto vie for american Eye Ling honors. Davis boasts that a Quarter of All trips made by its 44,000 citizens Are made by Bike. Palo Alto pays its employees 7 cents a mile for All business travel by Bike. It sponsors a citywide Quot leave your car at Home Day Quot has a bicycle squad in its police force1 and holds a traffic school Lor children who break bicycle1 Laws. One1 Palo Alto employer offers Bike commuters $ i for every Day they ride to work another provides showers and free towels pedal Power May 10, 1990 stripes Magazine