Potential Pedal Power on an Epic Scale

The untapped potential of bikes in Denver is astonishing. Here’s a pop quiz: how many bicycles do you think already exist in our city?

The number could be as high as 870,000. A CDOT study indicates that the average Colorado household has 2.7 bikes. And Denver, according to the Census, has 323,000 households.

Coming at it from a different angle, Denver is about 12% of the state population and CDOT estimates there are 3 million bikes in Colorado. If they’re distributed evenly (which they’re not – but let’s just deal with that), it would mean Denver has 360,000 bikes.

Let’s average 870,000 and 360,000, which equals 615,000, and call it a day. Because it doesn’t really matter.

What does matter is the certainty that there are a *&^@ ton of bicycles in Denver. And that colossal inventory of wheels, pedals, and derailleurs speaks to the stratospheric potential for people-powered transportation in our community.

What’s so exciting is that the potential is already there, as you read this, sitting in our garages. Other than some tubes that need patching, hundreds of thousands of bikes are ready for action.

The objective, accordingly, is obvious. Get folks to replace car trips (occasionally, at first) with the bicycles they already have sitting in their garages. In essence, reach for the handlebars first and the car keys second.

So that’s what we, Bike Streets, and the community at large need to do: convince those folks who have bikes and don’t ride them to take them out and experience the joy of using their own power to go where they want to go.