Bitten by the Biking Bug
Groups, civic leaders work to make area more bike-friendly story by
MARK WEDEL
It felt like our reality shifted in so many ways in March 2020. As
Covid-19 hit and the world shut down, I decided to ride my bike. This is a normal decision for me every spring, but I felt a little guilty. The official message was that we should all be staying home. But the sun was out, and I wanted to be out as well. I felt more guilt at my twinge of selfish excitement, thinking, "The roads will be free of cars, and the trails free of bikes! I'll have it all to myself!" And for a Tuesday afternoon, there really was little traffic. I felt more guilt as I enjoyed a little last-man-on-Earth feeling as I rode my bike from my home in the Edison neighborhood to downtown Kalamazoo, nothing but me and a few discarded medical masks drifting along Bank Street. I reached the Kal-Haven trailhead on 10th Street, and — oh, no — the trail was packed. Kids and parents, walkers, hikers, baby-stroller pushers, experienced and inexperienced cyclists. I did my best to pass people safely at the recommended 6 feet of distance, but it was almost impossible. This isn't what those apocalyptic movies about worldwide viruses promise, I thought. Instead of experiencing lonely desolation, I found crowds of people having fun and being healthy. Now, more than a year later, with vaccines available and a slow crawl back to normal happening, people still have the biking bug. It's helped to fuel the continued push by local organizations and civic leaders to make the Kalamazoo area a more bike-friendly region with safer biking routes. However, with more people riding on roads, nonmotorized paths and trails, it has also led to a shortage of new bikes. More than bike-curious Tim Krone has some frustrated customers. The owner of Pedal Bikes, which has locations in downtown Kalamazoo and on Romence Road in Portage, has had to tell angry people that "it's 100 percent beyond our control" that there just aren't any new bikes in the shop. There is a huge demand for bikes worldwide "that just sucked all of the bikes out of the supply chain,” Krone says. “And I would say the supply chain was empty probably as of September of last year — it was just completely dry. There are no bikes to buy at wholesale. We order bikes, the bikes come to us, and, nine times out of 10, we put somebody's name on it and roll it out the door." The industry is working at capacity and has yet to increase production enough to meet demand. "You don't just say, 'Hey, let's build another factory,'" Krone says of bicycle manufacturers. 20 | ENCORE JULY 2021
The shortage of bicycles and bicycle components will likely continue until 2022, according to a November 2020 story in Bicycling magazine. It'll be 2023 for eventual bike shop normality, according to a Canadian Broadcasting Corp. report in March. Krone recommends people find a used bike or just keep the bike they have in shape. An old bike from the back of the garage can be made rideable again, though new parts are also scarce. "Last year it was just Crazytown" in Pedal's maintenance department, Krone says. The influx of new customers created long wait times for bikes to be fixed, which isn't what the customers or Krone wants. "We want you to be on your bike. We don't want it here. We don't need to be buried with them," he says. After encouraging customers to get their bikes worked on the during the winter months, Pedal's maintenance department was relatively calm in early March. But, Krone says, "we get a 70-degree Saturday, everything changes." All these new bicycle riders have meant more than just a financial upside for his business, says Krone. While the crowds that rolled onto the trails during the spring and summer of 2020 were "a full-on freak show," Krone thinks many of those new riders will keep the habit, potentially making bikers a larger, more visible segment of society. "The more of us who're out on the streets, the more people see us, and the better it is," he says. In other words, the more motor vehicle drivers are made aware of bicyclists on the streets, the safer biking will become. Two-wheeled safety There are four types of people when it comes to attitudes about biking on roadways, and safety is a big concern for the vast majority of them, according to a survey conducted by the Michigan Department of Transportation and published in the Southwest Michigan Region Nonmotorized Transportation Plan. Those whom the plan refers to as "The Strong and the Fearless," who make up 1 percent of respondents, will ride on any road no matter the conditions or traffic levels. “The Enthused and Confident,” 6 percent of respondents, are comfortable sharing a roadway with motorized traffic but prefer to do so in designated places. The "No way, No how" crowd, 33 percent of respondents, have no interest in biking on roads, whatever the reason. But the largest segment of those surveyed, 60 percent, are "Interested but Concerned" people who would ride more on roads if they felt safer there.
