The Nerd Collective is a collaboration between Ryan Atkinson, president and co-owner of Workstand; Matt Tucker, director of client development at Circana; Peter Woolery, managing member of Bicycle Market Research; and Liam Donoghue, bicycle industry senior research manager at PeopleForBikes, who meet each month to develop data-backed insights on the bike industry’s most pressing issues.

Kids’ bikes don’t represent a particularly large percentage of dollar sales through the independent bicycle dealer (IBD) channel, leading to a generally smaller industry focus on its performance compared to other bike categories. However, the kids’ bike category is still an important metric for the growth of our industry. 

Kids’ bikes represent more than half of bicycle unit sales as measured by Circana, accounting for 57% of bike units sold across the total measured market in 2023*. It is important to note that the lion’s share of unit sales flow through the rest of market (ROM) channel (e.g., big box stores, sporting goods stores, etc.). For every kids’ bike sold at IBDs in 2023, the ROM channel sold 20.* 

Kids' bike sales are also an important barometer for the future of the market. As we know from PeopleForBikes’ COVID Participation Study, those who ride bikes as children are more likely to ride as adults than those who don’t. In this installment of our market trends series, the Nerd Collective looks at whether the sales patterns for kids' bikes differ from those of adult bikes. (spoiler alert — they do!)

Looking at the seasonal trend for unit sales of adult bikes (all bicycles excluding kids') in 2022 and 2023, it is clear that June and December are the strongest months, accounting for 14% and 12% of annual unit sales respectively. Further, 42% of adult bicycles are sold between March and June. 

For kids’ bikes, December is by far the strongest month, accounting for 25% of annual unit sales in 2022 and 2023. Also, the peak season for adult bikes (March through June) only accounts for 35% of annual unit sales for kids’ bikes.

The holiday spike in kids' bike sales is primarily driven by the ROM channel, where December accounts for 26% of annual unit sales in 2022-2023 compared to only 14% in the IBD channel. In December 2023, 40% of all kids’ bike units were sold online, an 8% over the first 11 months of the year.*

While the vast majority of those online sales happened at ROM stores, the holiday sales pattern is also strong for IBD e-commerce with December accounting for 20% of annual kids’ bike unit sales in 2023 and 21.5% in 2022.** In both years, roughly 3% of IBD kid’s bike sales in December took place online. This data suggests that there is opportunity for IBDs to boost sales of kid’s bikes during the holidays, particularly through leveraging online, e-commerce purchasing options. 

Conversely, the pattern of kids’ bike sales looks very different in the used marketplace, where there is no holiday sales peak.*** One interpretation of this observation is that potential sellers hold on to used bikes for their children to ride until they receive a new one as a holiday gift. Alternatively, it may be that the price gap between new and used kids’ bikes is particularly small during the holidays because of promotions and/or because potential sellers want to give their kids a new bike instead of a used bike during the holidays. 

It is worth noting that the used market is particularly strong for kids’ bikes, where the barriers to purchasing used and online are likely much lower than for other bike categories. In fact, kids’ bikes have the second lowest stock-to-sales ratio (behind e-bikes) with the average selling price (ASP) being very close to that observed in the ROM channel. It may be that the used market is so robust for kids’ bikes because sellers aren’t concerned about recouping costs and/or because kids move through bike sizes quickly. If the latter is true, the used market represents an opportunity to keep kids riding throughout their childhoods with a larger availability of affordable options.  

The U.S. is a uniquely strong market for kids’ bikes. Based on a CONEBI report of the European market, kids’ bikes accounted for about 20% of bikes sold in 2020. In the U.S., kids’ bikes accounted for about 57% of bikes sold across the total market measured by Circana in 2023.*

Why is there such a large difference between the U.S. and Europe, especially when taking Europe’s larger population into account? Some of the reason owes to how easily and inexpensively a U.S. shopper can buy a bike for their child, either online or while they’re doing the rest of their department store shopping. While the sentiment is certainly changing in large parts of the U.S., kids’ bikes are still often viewed as toys rather than a transportation option to get the family from home to school or other destinations.

We also know that not as many American children continue to ride as adults compared to their European peers. Based on PeopleForBikes’ 2022 Bicycling Participation Study, more than half of kids 14 or younger rode a bicycle at least once in the previous year. That participation rate drops to 42% at ages 15-17 and continues to decline throughout adulthood, down to just 18% among those ages 55+.  This points to a big opportunity to grow ridership  in the U.S. by not only getting more kids on bikes but keeping them riding through adulthood.

While youth-focused organizations like NICA, Little Bellas, Outride, and Safe Routes to School play a critical role in getting and keeping kids on bikes, the data suggests that the biggest drop in participation happens right around driving age. Given that, technological innovations like e-bikes may offer a new opportunity to engage teenagers. 

Those 8.2 million kids who get a new bike each year will be the next generation of riders propping up our industry in the next decade, so it’s imperative to keep as many of them riding as we can.

Have a question for the Nerd Collective to answer in a future blog? Submit it here.

*Based on Circana/Retail Tracking Services, US Cycling POS Monthly

** Based on Workstand IBD eCommerce sales data

***Based on Bicycle Market Research data on peer-to-peer used marketplaces (eBay, Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, Mercari)

Tracking Seasonality and International Sales Trends of Kids’ Bikes

When Britton Zoggs and her husband Arthur moved to the Broadmor neighborhood in south Tempe, Arizona, they did so for their daughter. They wanted her to live close enough to bike to elementary school. What they didn’t expect is how that decision would change their lives by being reunited with the joy of bicycling. But that’s exactly what happened when their daughter joined the Broadmor Elementary School Bike Bus last year. Sponsored by the Tempe Bicycle Action Group and organized by a group of local parents, the bike bus shuttles about 20 kids from a handful of collection points along a busy road to Broadmor Elementary School. 


“We had stopped biking once we settled down, but we got bikes to be able to join our daughter on the bike bus. We had forgotten how much fun it is! Now, we ride all the time around the neighborhood and are healthier and just happier,” said Zoggs. As is obvious from the faces of the children as they bike to school, her daughter and her classmates love it. “She’s totally confident on her bike. She wakes up early, without an alarm, on bike bus days. She’s so excited.”

Connection is the common theme expressed by everyone on the bike bus. “By biking with kids to school, they get to observe the world around us, and be more connected to our neighborhood,” said Hannah Moulton Belec, one of the organizers of the ride. “Doing that by car, you’re sitting in that long line of traffic and — not to mention the cost and the emissions — you’re just not connected to your neighborhood. It’s an alienating way to travel through your neighborhood.”

Kendra Flory and Moulton Belec organized the ride in 2022 out of frustration with the slow pace of safety improvements on College Avenue, the busy street that leads to the elementary school. It was designated as a “bicycle boulevard” in Tempe’s General Plan, but speeds were high and there was no urgency to change that. “There was a sense that it was an impossible problem, and that it wasn’t as bad as it could be. There was no urgency,” said Moulton Belec. Thankfully, the Bike Bus changed that. 

“It was one of the only things we actually could do to prove there was a demand for the type of infrastructure we wanted to see on College Ave.,” she said. 


Since then, city officials have expedited improvements on College Avenue. There is a new pilot protected bike lane, traffic calming devices, and colorful pavement murals that slow drivers. More are in the works.

In 2023, PeopleForBikes’ Industry Community Grant Program awarded the Tempe Bicycle Action Group $5,600 to highlight the connection between children's safety and the infrastructure that results in slower speeds.


As a result of the bike bus and a push for more safe places to ride, the culture is changing in Tempe. The city manager now meets with the ride organizers and other bicycle advocates regularly to get their input on potential infrastructure grant applications. Kids are biking to school on days even without the bike bus.

“Anytime we’re around the best cycling communities, like Amsterdam, you can feel the positivity,” said Zoggs. “We want to live in communities that prioritize bike lanes, even if we’re not riding bikes. It’s one of the first things we look at because of what it says about the community.” 


Zoggs is optimistic about the future of Tempe and grateful for PeopleForBikes’ support. “It gives us hope that you came here to support the bike bus. It makes us thrilled about living here in Tempe.”

Reconnecting With Joy: How a Simple Bike Bus Transformed a Neighborhood and Its Families

According to PeopleForBikes’ 2022 Bicycling Participation Study, the number of youth ages 3-17 who ride a bike at least once per year has steadily declined since 2016. While ridership does tend to decrease with age, this recent downturn in youth ridership is troubling. Thankfully, the nonprofit Outride is working to reverse that trend.

Outride’s Riding for Focus is a middle school rider education program that promotes bicycling as an outlet to support the social, emotional, and cognitive health of students. Through the program, schools are provided with all of the necessary equipment (including a fleet of bikes and helmets), curriculum, and teacher training to get youth riding.

Intended to be implemented during PE class time or in a structured after school setting, the Riding for Focus curriculum features 12 modules to take students from beginner to road-ready riders. Each module is aligned to national SHAPE standards, an organization that serves as the voice for 200,000+ health and physical education professionals across the United States, and includes all relevant materials and activities.

More than 350 Riding for Focus programs have been implemented in middle schools across the U.S. and Canada and benefit the lives of 50,000+ students every year.

In an effort to expand its reach with middle schools serving students from low-income and traditionally underserved backgrounds, Outride is currently accepting applications for Riding for Focus grants, which provides schools with everything they need to get students riding.


The application period for 2024 Riding for Focus grants closes on March 31, 2024.


Visit Outride’s website for more information on Riding for Focus, grant guidelines, FAQs, and to submit your application.

Support the Next Generation of Bike Riders With a Riding for Focus Grant

On December 12, the PeopleForBikes Coalition Board of Directors approved our 2023 Industry Community Grants recipients, totaling $100,000 in funding across 13 grants. The grants will help fund projects that support our focus on building infrastructure that makes communities great places to ride a bike. The projects include several pump tracks, efforts to build safe routes to schools, demonstration projects to promote the importance of protected bike lanes, innovative solutions to combat bike theft in college towns, and mountain bike parks in flat urban areas.

2023 PeopleForBikes Industry Community Grants

Delmont, PA | Trail construction and intersection improvements for a connection to the Westmoreland Heritage Rail Trail. Our funds leverage an additional $18,000 to build a new and vital bikeway for residents and visitors in Delmont.

Sandersville, GA | Funding to construct the first 3 miles of a 250-mile trail system in Georgia, leveraging $6 million in other funding.

Los Angeles, CA | One in a series of “CicLAminis,” a neighborhood-focused open streets event celebrating new neighborhood bike infrastructure. This grant will highlight the specific trail extensions and protected bikeways that improve bicycling locally. 

Ann Arbor, MI | Demonstration project to install and evaluate permeable surfaces on a segment of the Treeline-Allen Creek Urban Trail to create a safe and accessible bike path through a floodplain.

Durango, CO | Demonstration projects of fully protected bike lanes on key portions of a proposed citywide network of low-stress bikeways.   

Saint Johns, AZ | A collaboration with the Legacy Teen Center to build a new pump track that will help launch the Legacy Bike Club. 

Jersey City, NJ | Demonstration project to install and evaluate protected bike lanes in Jersey City to leverage $670,590 in state funding for permanent construction.

Clear Creek Off-Road Bike Association — $7,650

Pearland, TX | Initial construction costs for an innovative mountain bike trail system in an urban park, using shipping containers to create hills in an otherwise flat, low-income neighborhood.  

Providence, RI | Community rides and organizing to win community support for protected bike lanes in low-income communities and leverage $28 million in federal grants.

Tempe, AZ | A "bike bus" to highlight the need for infrastructure that’s safe for children to enjoy on a bicycle and support its construction.

Eugene, OR | An innovative solution to prevent bike theft with a strategy to expand the use of public funding and provide an example for other college towns where bike theft prevents people from relying on a bike for transportation.

St. Louis, MO | Support for the construction of a quick-build protected bike lane on Compton Avenue, a key connection to existing bike boulevard projects in the citywide network.

Kearns, UT | An upgrade to the Lodestar XC Bike Park to enhance the trails and add skills features including adaptive features. Open to the public, the park provides the only training opportunities for students from six high school mountain bike teams.  

PeopleForBikes' Industry Community Grants Program provides funding for projects that make bicycling better in communities across the U.S. Since 1999, PeopleForBikes has awarded more than 400 grants to nonprofit organizations and local governments in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. Our investments total more than $3.5 million and have leveraged $775 million in public and private funding for bike-related projects nationwide.

PeopleForBikes' 2023 Industry Community Grants Recipients

Bikes are magical, not only because they efficiently get us where we need to go but because they also allow us to better interact with our surroundings. While a car quickly transports people from one place to another, traveling by bike allows the rider to take in the world around them, helping to ground them as part of a larger community. In fact, according to new research, compared to drivers, people who ride a bike are more oriented towards the common good, which benefits society.  

If your mission is to help connect people to places, then a bike can be a particularly powerful tool. The Center of Southwest Culture (CSC), a nonprofit based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, works to support Indigenous and Latino communities through economic development, cultural, and educational programs — and its programming is firmly place-based. Since 2017, the organization has used bikes to empower youth and reconnect them with their natural and cultural heritage through its Story Riders program. 

“Bicycling is a mode of transportation that allows you to move a bit farther than walking, but it also still has you fully involved in your surrounding community,” says Leila Sonora Murrieta, who coordinates the Story Riders program. “So you see people, you see animals, you see the neighborhood streets — you get to learn your surrounding area while fully being able to move through a space.”

Story Riders was initially launched as an after-school program in Albuquerque’s Barelas neighborhood, a settlement that’s been around since the 1600s and predates the city itself by at least a few decades. The initial goal of the program was to connect the local youth to the stories of the neighborhoods' Indigenous and Latino elders, and it was decided they would conduct those interviews by bike. By 2020, the program had expanded to three different schools, all in historic neighborhoods that were rapidly changing.

“We wanted to be able to just hear these stories about places that you wouldn't get from the traditional school system,” says Marco Sandoval, who directs the Story Riders program. “There was also an urgency to it because all these historic, beautiful neighborhoods, which had been built by brown peoples, were undergoing gentrification. We felt like we really needed to get our youth in touch with these elders.”

In addition to a two-week after-school program, CSC runs Story Riders as a summer initiative for youth aged 9-18. The program, which serves 10 kids at a time and operates for three hours each weekday morning, begins with practical training in bicycle safety and hands-on maintenance. Each child works on a donated bicycle, which they then ride for the duration of the program and are allowed to keep upon completion (participants also receive complimentary gear, including a helmet). For youth who don’t know how to ride, Sandoval and Murrieta teach them using the balance method.

“The first couple of days are just about the bicycle,” says Sandoval, noting that in addition to learning basic maintenance and bike skills, kids also learn how to put sealant in their tires and fix flats. “In New Mexico, cactus makes that an essential part of bicycling.”

After a few days of bicycle instruction, the cohort eventually takes to Albuqureque’s streets, tackling some urban riding but primarily journeying to the Bosque, where 16 miles of paved multi-use trails meander through a cottonwood forest alongside the Rio Grande. Not only does the river play an important role in the lives of New Mexicans but the Bosque, which means “woods” or “forest” in Spanish, provides an oasis of valuable resources in an otherwise arid habitat.

“The Bosque and the river form the spiritual center of Albuquerque,” says Sandoval, adding that the area offers a way to get into nature and away from cars without actually leaving the city. “It’s a public space and we encourage the kids to think of it as their space. We also introduce the idea that public spaces shouldn’t be developed, that they should stay public.”

During the course of the Story Riders program, CSC brings in different leaders in the community, such as artists, herbalists, organic farmers, and elders. Through interactive plant walks along the Bosque, herbalism lessons, garden tours, art projects, visits to historical sites, and storytelling, the youth learn more about their culture and heritage. 

“The Story Riders program focuses on the three Bs: Bicis (or bicycles), Bosque, and Belonging,” says Murrieta, explaining that the aspect of belonging comes into play as children begin to understand more about where they come from and the place they call home. 

Reflecting on the impact of the program, the word that comes up most among past participants and their parents is “confidence.” In line with the research the nonprofit Outride has shared, bicycling can help build confidence among youth, allowing them to get in touch with their body and realize what they’re capable of. It can also help them regulate their emotions — participants are calmer and happier when they’re picked up — as well as perform better academically.

“Kids' overall health is improved just by being outside,” says Sandoval, who was inspired to start the Story Riders program after working in a school. “I was frustrated with our institutions and what they think children need.”

Story Riders makes learning to bike and getting outside easy by eliminating barriers to entry. For historically underserved Indigenous and Latino communities, CSC’s target demographic, providing the gear that’s often inaccessible — the bike, helmet, water bottle, and tools — makes a huge difference. Even more important is the fact that all of the Story Riders leaders are from the community they aim to serve, helping to drive home the message of belonging. 

“When I started cycling, there were no brown people on the trails who looked like me, it was all white people and I felt like an outsider,” says Sandoval. “We want the youth to see leaders that look like them.”

This past summer, Story Riders began introducing trips outside of the city to Forest Service land, and this past October, they launched a course on the Isleta Pueblo with Pueblo Resurgents, a community-governed organization committed to promoting anti-colonial Indigenous agroecology. During a three-week program, youth learned from local artists and elders and explored archeological sites, all on bikes. 

This month, Story Riders is launching an Adelitas class, named in honor of the señoras who fought in the Mexican Revolution. Open to women and taught in Spanish, it will be CSC’s first adult class. 

PeopleForBikes is proud to have supported The Center of Southwest Culture’s Story Riders program with a 2022 grant. For more information on our Industry Community Grants, visit peopleforbikes.org/grants.

This Bike Program Is Empowering Indigenous and Latino Youth

When you pass a group of kids on bicycles, it’s hard not to smile — there’s something innately joyful about the sight. There’s also an underlying assumption that everything about the act, from the socialization to the time spent outdoors engaged in physical activity, is good for them. New research affirms that gut feeling.

Published on October 12, 2023, in Frontier in Sports and Active Living, a new study from researchers at Loma Linda University (LLU) reveals the positive impact of cycling education on the psychosocial well-being of students. The research is the result of a collaboration between LLU and the youth cycling nonprofit Outride, examining the impact of Outride’s in-school cycling programs on the mental health of middle schoolers. 

"Our findings were incredibly encouraging,” says Dr. Sean Wilson, LLU professor and senior author of the study. “A large proportion of students had a positive learning experience and continued interest in cycling,” 

“As a learning organization, we really want to understand how bicycling can improve the lives of youth in their communities,” says Dr. Esther Walker, senior research manager at Outride. 

Anonymous surveys were collected before and after the program in 20 schools in North America, with psychosocial well-being quantified using the WHO-5 Well-Being Index and the Pediatric Symptom Checklist (PSC-17-Y). The former is a short, five-item, self-report questionnaire that assesses positive well-being and primarily assesses for depression, while the latter is a widely used measure of psychosocial functioning, with lower scores representing greater well-being. According to the study, participation in R4F was associated with improved psychosocial well-being among middle school youth in the United States. 

“It was really encouraging to see such a positive student response to a cycling-specific physical education program,” says Fletcher Dementyev, a research fellow at LLU and first author of the paper. “This result motivates us, and hopefully others, to continue investigating and developing cycling as a pathway to improved health and well-being in adolescents.”

“By providing access to bikes, a safe environment to learn to ride, and the confidence to ride independently, we can really help to create healthy pathways,” says Walker. “As youth are facing worrying levels of physical inactivity and mental health challenges, finding those activities that get them excited to participate is really important.”

PeopleForBikes’ 2022 Bicycling Participation Report reflects this trend: While 49% of youth ages 3-17 rode a bicycle at least once in 2022, ridership among younger Americans has continued to drop since 2016.

“Our program data shows that access to bikes at home, as well as safe places to ride, is not equitable across the student population,” said Walker, noting that programs like R4F, which take place during the school day and provide all necessary materials, gives everyone the opportunity to learn a skill they can use throughout their life. "While bicycling can certainly contribute positively to one's day-to-day life, to see large-scale improvements, we need changes in policy and reductions in systematic disparities in access to nutrition, health services, safe environments, and beyond.”

As school systems, educators, policymakers, and healthcare professionals work together to address the mental health challenges facing today's youth, this study provides valuable insights into the potential of cycling programs to enhance the mental well-being of young people across the U.S. University-backed research is showing the benefits that come along with getting more kids on bikes. Communities should listen.  

Interested in learning more? Follow Outride on Instagram and Facebook to stay up-to-date with their work to improve the well-being of youth through research-backed cycling programs.

Research Highlights the Positive Impact of In-School Cycling

Topics

Youth Bicycling