President of Trek Bicycles John Burke is urging industry colleagues to be more active in general promotion of cycling
Trek boss John Burke is a man with a message, and I think I like what he’s saying. He’s already been dubbed ‘the Al Gore of the bicycle’.
Burke is President of Trek Bicycles, one of the biggest global players in the industry (the biggest manufacturers in terms of volume are in China). He was addressing Taipei Bike Show in Taiwan, having also aired his message earlier at the League of American Bicyclists’ annual meeting in Portland, Oregon in March.
Burke referred to four of the most significant current global trends: obesity, traffic congestion, environmental pollution, and rising energy costs, reinforcing his message, Al Gore-style, with sobering statistics.
He then asked a simple question, to which you probably already know the answer: what one product is perfectly suited to address all of these issues? The bicycle, of course.
Burke’s message to his industry colleagues was, yes, product development and marketing are important, but the long-term future of the bicycle ultimately depends on people wanting to ride them - which means supporting initiatives that make the world, or just individual communities, better places for bikes. He urged his colleagues to spend on bicycle advocacy, relative to other areas like R & D and advertising.
This all seems to make perfect sense to me. The bicycle does have massive potential to help alleviate all the problems mentioned above (and probably a few others I could think of). However, the amount that’s currently spent on cycling promotion is minuscule compared to what goes into promoting cars - which, let’s be honest, are one of the main factors causing all of these problems.
It remains to be seen how the industry will respond to John Burke’s rallying cry, but I for one hope they really get behind it.
