Shift Up Podcast: People For Bikes proves cycling infrastructure equates to enhanced IBD sales

Having been under careful assessment for the past two years, People for Bikes recently released its Places for Bikes City Ranking results; which, as you’ll hear in the latest Shift Up Podcast, may prove  critical to cementing the link between cycling infrastructure and our industry’s sales.

In this episode our presenter, Arleigh Greenwald, discusses the program with Jennifer Boldry, Ph.D., Director of Research at People for Bikes. Most importantly, this episode discusses how having a more connected bike network directly impacts local bike shop growth.

“A score of 100 means that the bike network functions just like the road network. The best reasonably sized U.S. cities come in around the mid-50s,” explains Boldry.

Widely considered the cycling capital of Europe, Copenhagen, for context, only score an 82.

Why should bike shops get involved in bike advocacy, we hear you ask? Boldry says that there is a strong correlation between high scores and high IBD sales.

“I took a look at the BNA scores in the 485 cities we scored and I looked at available data on IBD retail sales. The results were incredible; I found that cities scoring 40 or higher correlated to IBD sales that were around 84% higher than the average. For cities with better networks you have bike stores with a much better bottom line.”

To listen in full either head to the top of the homepage, or hit play below.