Who’s riding road bikes these days?

Watching a road race or downhill/enduro event live or on TV. It doesn't surprise me youth prefer the later.
 
I wonder what proportion of people in younger generations even learned to ride a bike? I'd guess it was close to 100% for my generation... but I bet it's gone down.
Both my kids/young female adults “can” ride a bike and I do have bikes they “could” ride. It doesn’t ever happen anymore, though we have some great memories of them being towed in a trailer bike, probably more to do with having biscuits and being able to nod off rather than being out and about! Maybe a bit different if they were lads I guess, certainly when I was of their age there were a lot more lads on bikes.

It’s a bit sad really as I come from a family who on one side for a few generations even the extended grandparents/uncles/aunties etc. were all cyclists, met through cycling and was our main weekend activity.

As a kid I’d be out all day with my brother and friends on our bikes either at the woods or the riverside.
 
Yeah as a kid I was the same.
But I have one nephew, now about a quarter of a century old, who, I'm informed, never learned to ride a bike nor expressed any subsequent desire to do so. (So it would seem there's not been much peer-pressure in that direction either.) That seems pretty sad to me, but maybe I'm biased! I was wondering how common that is?
 
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Our lad is 20 & learned to ride a bike around 4 or 5 but was never anything he was into & he'd go years without riding. Then around 13 at school & rugby he fell in with some top rippers who'd ridden from a young age & he picked it up with a vengeance. Within a couple more years he was on podium regularly. He's eased off last couple of years with studies but still a thing for him.
 
I remember having a conversation with a cousin c. 1999 about cycling and how as boy I had cycled all over to see friends to go to play sport or just to go to the local towns for the afternoon. So why didn't his boys as they were 14- 15
Well nowadays he said we would never let the children ride a bicycle on the road far too dangerous. He thought I was being ridiculous for suggesting it. Said if I had children I wouldn't dream of letting them ride on the road.
I think that attitude has meant that fewer and fewer young adults see road cycling as anything but exercise or doing their bit for the planet, except in very big cities where it is seeing a resurgence as a commuting method but the days of cycling in everyday clothes at a relatively leisurely pace so as to arrive without being a sweaty mess seem to have gone.
Mind you I wouldn't a club or pay to go on a ride. I love that there is a charity ride that I get to do once a year the second Saturday of September this year my plan is to do 75 miles or so. You can read more about that here https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/james-lepper2022 . I have had the perfect excuse to cycle to different pubs in the area meet my wife and a friend or two there have lunch and then cycle home.


On the greeting front I always say good whatever time of day is appropriate. I have noticed a hand acknowledgement seems to get a better reaction from most maybe I leave the verbal one too late or do it too early for the other person to hear me.
 

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