High Gas Prices Cause Bike Shortages in N.Y.

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The New York Sun

High gas prices are causing spot shortages of bikes in New York City, as commuters turn to pedal power.

Many of these new cyclists are from areas not commonly associated with the “Bike Belt” — neighborhoods such as the Upper West Side and Williamsburg in Brooklyn — but are instead from Queens and other places where driving to work has long been common and affordable. With gas costing nearly $4 a gallon, these commuters are switching to bikes, leaving some stores short on fashionable brands and preferred colors.

The owner of Dixon’s Bicycle Shop in Park Slope, Brooklyn, David Dixon, said that over Memorial Day weekend, his store sold all 25 of its Jamis hybrid bikes — a cross between a racing bike and a mountain bike that sells for between $285 and $335 and is favored among commuters. Early this week, Mr. Dixon called Jamis to order about 50 more bikes and was told that a shipment wouldn’t arrive until the end of the week. “They’re all gone. It’s wicked,” Mr. Dixon said. “This isn’t usual at all. The price of gas is affecting everyone.”

“We ended up selling very heavily,” the owner of Bicycle Habitat in SoHo, Charles McCorkell, said. “I thought there would be a shortage.”

Mr. McCorkell said some stores are running out of Trek FX bikes in black and silver. “New York is an interesting place because people want their bikes to be very inconspicuous,” a Trek spokesman said. Two years ago, Trek launched a new line of “urban” bikes called Soho, which are visually unremarkable and appealing to city dwellers who want to avoid theft.

Mr. McCorkell and some other bicycle distributors say they have been lucky. They say they knew this summer would be a difficult and costly one for drivers, and placed substantially larger orders with bicycle manufacturers. While Bicycle Habitat usually houses 450 bikes, there are now 850 in the shop, and most of them are Trek or Specialized bikes that are popular with commuters.

It may be too early to tell how stores’ supplies will hold up throughout the summer months. The owner of Larry’s Bicycles Plus, Larry Duffus, said that comfort bikes and flat-bar bikes — both of which are popular with commuter cyclists — have accounted for between 45% and 50% of his sales this year, and he expects that percentage to grow.

He said that with rising gas prices, New Yorkers are more likely to stay in the city on weekends, and would want bikes for recreation and transportation. Mr. Duffus has heard customers — many of who are new riders from boroughs outside Manhattan — in his store talking about gas prices.

“It’s all about projections,” a manager at Manhattan Velo, Carlos Dallorso, said. “The stores that didn’t plan ahead have shortages.”

A commuter cyclist and the communications director for Transportation Alternatives, Wiley Norvell, credited recent efforts by the Department of Transportation to create more bike lanes.

“I’ve never seen this many bicyclists in the spring,” he said.

It may also help that May is Bike Month, which encompasses a variety of events organized by Transportation Alternatives in tandem with the city, for example, the “tour de Brooklyn,” which took place on Sunday of Memorial Day weekend. Three thousand people turned out for the event this year, compared to last year’s 2,000, according to Mr. Norvell.


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