Sandy’s Bicycle Boom

The 1980 transit strike is seen by some as the moment women switched from uncomfortable shoes to sneakers and flats, making a woman in business attire with running shoes one of the iconic images of New York City during the Eighties.  Could we see something similar with bicycles?

Via CNBC.com:

“Yesterday we outsold our busiest summer Saturday,” said Emily Samstag, manager of Bicycle Habitat in Brooklyn, speaking to a surge in bike-related sales just one day after Hurricane Sandy ravaged the East Coast. “Our first customer walked in and said: ‘The subways are down so I have to buy a bike’. That was standard all morning.”

All told the shop sold 15 bikes Wednesday. In October it usually sells a bike every two weeks.

Oh, and the story kicks off with this:

New York, once known as New Amsterdam, could soon look a lot more like…well, Amsterdam.