In the late 70s, during one of the gasoline crises, I decided to improve on the three-speed Raleigh I had ridden since Jr High and get at least a ten speed. I shopped and shopped and was torn between a Puch Brigadier and a Raleigh SuperCourse. They had virtually the same components, and this was before I knew the word gruppo, but I obsessed over the frames. One of the bike store managers seemed impressed that I actually seemed to care what I bought. He said with gas prices rising, many men were rushing in, and all they knew was that they wanted a good bike.

That seems to have been happening again this last year:

A Surge in Bicyclists Appears to Be Waiting

Business skyrocketed last summer along with gasoline prices, Mr. Graves said, especially sales of hybrid bikes that can be used for recreation and transportation. So Mr. Graves ordered plenty of cold weather gear for what he believed would be legions of new bike commuters.

“We wished we hadn’t gone in quite as heavy,” Mr. Graves said. “Business is not growing at the rate it was earlier in the year.”

Lower gas prices may have changed the picture, or:

Industry analysts … said even then that bicycle store owners … were misreading the indicators. What owners perceived to be a commuter trend was probably not. The analysts argued that bicycle commuters were generally a fixed group. These riders account for less than 1 percent of commuters in the United States; in isolated pockets like Portland, they might account for about 6 percent.

What I noticed a few years ago in Frederick, a small Maryland city swallowed by DC exurbs, was a lot of hispanic and other working class types riding very stripped down mountain bikes to work. I saw one fellow carrying his drill with the plaster mixing head in one hand. There was also the public employee guy I passed every day. I didn’t count recreational types wearing colorful jerseys and riding expensive road bikes. I figure they had the day off.

Here in Federal Hill, I’m so close that I walk to work, but I see a lot more riders, many without helmets, heading for nearby downtown Baltimore every morning, but I’d have to agree that they are probably part of that fixed group mentioned above.

One view contends that the sluggish coda to the summer bicycling boom is not the end of the refrain.

“I don’t think any of us are fools that $1.89-a-gallon gasoline is really going to be the way it will be from here on out,” said Fred Clements, executive director of the National Bicycle Dealers Association. “I don’t want to appear to be too bullish, but some of the longer term trends — how we get out of an economic recession like this — don’t necessarily put bicycles in a bad spot. Bicycles are part of a solution to the problem.”

I can’t seem to respond to comments, so here’s an update:

As much as I prefer it, biking is no picnic on our streets. We just saw this on the news:

A Baltimore family is asking for the public’s help in finding the person responsible for a hit-and-run that left a 12-year-old girl hospitalized. Rondtrel Croons was hit Friday while riding bicycle (a birthday present) at the intersection of Gusryan and O’Donnell streets. She said the driver ran a red light, hit her and kept going.

Croons spent two days in the hospital and is now recovering at home. (She also lost many of her front teeth).