Bike use is rising among the young, but it is skyrocketing among the old


There’s no question that Generation Y’s tendency to favor city life and its declining enthusiasm for car ownership has boosted bike transportation.

But as the older Civil Rights Generation and the Baby Boomers who followed them have entered the last third of their lives, they’ve quietly transformed what it means to be the kind of person who rides a bicycle.

 Between 1995 and 2009, the most recent year for which National Household Travel Survey data is available, the rise in biking among people ages 60-79 accounted for 37 percent of the total nationwide increase in bike trips.

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