50% fewer of us own a bicycle

IT may seem like everybody is cycling nowadays. But ownership of bicycles worldwide has fallen by 50 per cent, according to the biggest ever survey on the subject.

American researchers who analysed statistics covering 1.25billion households in 148 countries found that there are around 580million bicycles owned across the globe.

The number of households which possess a bike fell from 60 per cent in 1989 to 32 per cent in 2012, they reported.

These figures exclude India and China. Including these two countries, the number of bike-owning households fell by a third.

The authors of the study, from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, found that generally bicycle ownership is highest in northern Europe and lowest in parts of Africa and central Asia.

In Britain, they said, only around 40 per cent of households own a bike – much lower than most developed nations such as Germany, France and Italy.