Go to Europe, poor people ride the bus the better-off use a bike. This was my impression from the United States, too, but then numbers made me look again, and

Go to Europe, poor people ride the bus the better-off use a bike. This was my impression from the United States, too, but then numbers made me look again, and I started to notice a lot of people who didn't fit my assumptions. The image that makes me think "bike commuter" is someone briskly riding a practical, efficient bike with a laptop bag of some kind, so I was ignoring a lot of other people who are often not carrying anything, not riding very fast, riding an ill-fitting bike or one not particularly suited for commuting. It never occurred to me that those people might be riding to work.