By Alan Snel of LVSportsBiz.com
In this strange, new age of a coronavirus pandemic, isolation and social distancing for at least 30 days and likely longer, Aly and Shawn Losk took out their bicycles for the first time in five years and decided to pedal with their tyke on a bike, tiny Jayden who was pedaling with training wheels on a sidewalk in Summerlin.
“We’ve been teaching him in the neighborhood,” mom Aly Losk said of her young son. “We have to use the training wheels, but we have a whole month for him to learn to bike without the training wheels.”
The closest retail bicycle shop is Las Vegas Cyclery, which cannot keep its store open for retail sales but can serve customers via curbside service to repair bikes because fixing bikes are essential under transportation services.
And bike shop workers have noticed a new trend as people are urged to stay home and not socialize to stem the spread of this coronavirus that can easily be transmitted because some people who are infected do not show any symptoms.
“People are getting their bikes prepared that haven’t been ridden in a year,” Las Vegas Cyclery employee Bruce Balch said late Friday afternoon. “Sometimes it’s parents coming to air up their kids’ tires or people with hybrids that are dusty and have cobwebs.”
On Friday, a woman in her 60s has died of the coronavirus, the second COVID-19 death in Clark County. Nevada has 126 coronavirus cases, including 74 confirmed cases in Clark County.
At 1:30 p.m., Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak ordered all non-essential business shuttered to try and stem the spread of a virus that human beings do not have an immunity against.
Las Vegas Cyclery owner Jared Fisher said his business has taken a severe hit in bike sales as sales are down 60 percent, but the silver lining is that repairs are up as people in Clark County are dusting off their bicycles to make then ride-worthy. Bike repairs are seen as essential under transportation services, just like car repairs.
Fisher said his downtown bike shop in the RTC transit center has also taken abandoned bicycles and repaired them for people who need transportation to get to the store to buy food. He’s selling these repaired bicycles for anything from $18-$60 — just the cost of fixing the bikes to make then safe to ride.
“People are riding bikes to get to the grocery store after losing their jobs. They don’t have money for their car, so they’ll use a bike to get to the store,” Fisher said. “People want to get their old bikes fixed.”
If you’re outside, you will see anecdotal evidence of old-fashion exercise. With people staying home, they’re getting fresh air by walking and bicycling.
The virus appears to have a silver lining — the comeback of the bicycle. LVSportsBiz.com witnessed a young girl learning to ride a bicycle for the first time.
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