This week I’ve noticed a lot more people biking along my regular bike commute route through the Duke campus. I’ve been riding the 3 miles from our house to class at Fuqua pretty regularly for the past year and just a couple weeks ago I hardly ever saw anyone on the road.

Last night on my way home around 6 I saw at least 5 bike commuters, all genders and ages. I guess gas prices are finally high enough for people to consider biking a reasonable option to driving. Perhaps it is the weather, too, since it seems to have finally cooled off to a decent temperature here in North Carolina. But based on my own (informal) observations and comparing the number of commuters I saw to the numbers I saw last year at this time, I would definitely say there is more at play than simply the weather.

There’s even a guy that does the commute on a Segway! He looks like an older guy, probably a professor, but he rides the Segway on the sidewalk like it’s no big deal with his book satchel attached to the side of the machine. The police at Duke also have at least one Segway and I see them riding it on my route from time to time as well. Seems to me these high gas prices may actually be having a positive effect if it gets more people into the fresh air!

During my summer internship I came across a report from the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association showing the participation in various sports in the United States. The free report shows participation numbers from as far back as 1987 and highlights some interesting trends. All the data referenced in this entry come from the 2005 Topline Participation Report from the SGMA. Sports are broken down into various categories like fitness, team sports, indoor sports, wheel sports, outdoor activities, winter sports, and more. It is really is unbelievable how comprehensive this report is.

The first sport I looked at was mountain biking (naturally). As a mountain biker I had the impression that the sport is growing in popularity as I personally know plenty of people who either want to get into the sport or who have recently purchased mountain bikes. But according to the SGMA report, mountain biking participation in the US has been declining since 1998! The SGMA estimates that 5.3M Americans will go mountain biking at least once in 2005, down from the peak of 8.6M in 1998. In 2005 more people will go Trail Running than mountain biking. What’s up with that?

It’s also interesting to note that almost all team sports saw participation numbers decline from 2004 to 2005 with the exception of cheerleading, softball, and volleyball, which all happen to be traditionally female dominated sports. Even soccer has seen huge increases in the numbers of female players participating over the last few years but not enough to stem an overall decline in participation by 10%. Perhaps kids today are choosing X-box and Playstation as their sports of choice? Does playing Triple Play Baseball on Playstation count as participation? Even skateboarding is down almost 5%, although participation is up almost 50% over the past 6 years.

This report also opened my eyes to the potential sizes of various sports markets and how that should play into business decisions or models for start-ups. More than 51M Americans will go camping at least once in 2005 and 37M will go running or jogging. Recreational participants make up huge numbers of sports participants and far outnumber the more serious competitors. 52M Americans will go for a “recreational” bike ride in 2005, 92M will do some recreational walking (whatever that means?), and a whopping 95M will go for a recreational swim. The potential to sell to or convert some of the recreational participants certainly represents a large opportunity for savvy marketers.

This SGMA report does a great job at putting sports participation numbers into perspective. The SGMA offers more detailed reports on each sport to give entrepreneurs and industry leaders a solid understanding of the numbers behind various sports in the United States.

So I finally got myself a road bike after 11 years or so of mountain biking (actually Leah got it through Performance). It’s a Giant OCR-C2 and it’s a sweet ride. Leah had it weighed and the sucker barely tips the scale at 20 pounds. The wonders of modern materials science…

Once when I was in middle school I borrowed a kid’s 10-speed road bike and cruised it up and down the block. I had never ridden a bike with gears or hand brakes and I immediately fell in love with the speed and the ease of pedaling. I asked my parents for a 10-speed for Christmas that year but on Christmas morning I found a 10-speed mountain bike under the tree. At that point I don’t think I knew the difference between mountain and road bikes and I was happy to get the bike but in the back of my mind I knew I still wanted to be a roadie.

In high school mountain biking was the cool thing to do among my group of friends so I stuck with the fat tires and upgraded my Western Auto brand bike to a used Bridgestone MB-5. It was a great bike, though that was in the days before any kind of suspension. I think some people did have front shocks on their bikes but it was ultra expensive and I only paid $200 for my whole bike!

This morning I took the Giant out for a spin around the country roads outside Duke University into Orange County. Before I knew it I had ridden almost 30 miles in an hour and 45 minutes! While I was riding I was thinking about the things I like about road biking as compared to mountain biking. For one thing I got to experience some new scenery since I’ve mountain biked every legal (and some illegal) trail within a 250 mile radius of my house. This morning I saw a roadside tomato stand in front of a house and an RV park I never knew existed. Road biking also presents a better opportunity for using a GPS in training. I’ve been having problems getting good GPS signals on the local trails due to tree cover; on a road bike, you’re almost always able to get a good signal. Road biking is also much faster than mountain biking, though I think the sensation of speed is comparable for both (since you have trees whizzing by in close proximity on your mountain bike). One of my least favorite things about mountain biking is worrying about my gear and keeping it well maintained. With a road bike, your ride isn’t as exposed to dirt and mud that sucks so much of the life out of your drive train.

I’m certainly not ready to give up the mountain bike yet and I’m still dedicated to finding the best, most scenic singletrack in the world. Some of the things I’ve been able to see on a mountain bike are completely inaccessible on a road bike. But for now, while living in North Carolina with a limited set of new and exciting trails, I think I might just get into road riding for a while. Save the singletrack for vacations to more exciting destinations…