Bike Ownership Drops By Half & 5 Other Bad Things That Happened Since 1989

The year was 1989. Taylor Swift was born and 60% of the world's population owned a bicycle. Sweet. Fast forward 23 years to 2012, and the world bicycle ownership rate takes a nosedive to 32% according to researchers at Johns Hopkins University who looked at data from 1.25 billion households in 150 countries and published their findings this month in the Journal of Transport & Health. Cause and effect is pretty tough to prove, but a few other things have changed between 1989 and 2012 that might be related...

You're so right, Taylor Swift. 1989 was awesomer. What happened?

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In 1989 60% of the world's population owned a bike (SOURCE). Then people owned less bikes and some bleak stuff started happening...

1. Obesity in the US increased 158%

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From 1990 to 2012, obesity rates in the US skyrocketed from 11.1% to 28.6% (SOURCE). Today 1 in 3 American adults is considered obese.

2. People cared less about air pollution.

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Somewhat ironic considering that fewer bikes typically mean more cars, but a Gallup poll of the concerns of U.S. Americans about the environmental threat of air pollution have been on a steady decline since 1989 (SOURCE). Maybe it's all that CO2 we've been inhaling.

Fun-true fact: Aerosol hairspray sales declined at approximately the same rate. NJ stylists speculate that trends are related.

3. Kids biked to school way less.

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Safe Routes to School National Partnership reports that, "within the span of one generation, the percentage of children walking or bicycling to school has dropped precipitously, from approximately 50% in 1969 to just 13% in 2009." This is perchance related to Millennial parents having fewer bikes, no?

4. Lance won 7 times. And then didn't.

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This was a bike bummer. Luckily, performance enhancing supplements are not needed to win the bike race from your house to the grocery store.

5. Heart disease stayed the leading cause of death.

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The total number of deaths from heart disease in the US have dropped a little, from 720,058 in 1990 (SOURCE) to 610,000 today (SOURCE) according to the CDC, but cardiovascular disease is still the #1 cause of death in the US.

Good news though.

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2.2 billion people around the world have made the decidedly cool decision to own a bike. They're probably the ones with healthier BMIs, hearts and kids. Just saying. If you're feeling like you want to join the elite 32% of the world enlightened enough to ride a bike, here are some good places to start:

BikeShare.com is a cool website that will help you find the nearest bike share to you.

MyCityBikes.org has local apps to let you know where to bike when you don't know what you're doing yet.

...and just in case you need a little extra motivation to ride a bike besides saving your life, a scientifically verified fact for your consideration: the faster/better you can bike the sexier you get. Heck yes.