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I'm guessing it's a very high proportion, but has someone got a reliable statistic for this?

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    I’m voting to close this question because it only nominally is related to bicycles. The question is most likely appropriate for another Stackexchange site devoted to statistics. – Grigory Rechistov Sep 24 '20 at 19:09
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    @Grigory - Do you know what "nominally" means? This question is essentially related to bicycles. Please retract your vote. Thanks. –  Sep 24 '20 at 19:35
  • There's a heap of British info at https://www.cyclinguk.org/statistics but this specific ability is not addressed. – Criggie Sep 24 '20 at 20:08
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    @GrigoryRechistov FYI, this would be closed in the Cross Validated SE site (for statistics). The question deals with data sources. Cross Validated is about statistical methods. – Weiwen Ng Sep 24 '20 at 22:41
  • Could you expand on the word "can" ? You want to know how many people currently possess the ability to ride a bike, vs those who could acquire the ability after some learning ? ie 100% minus those who are physically or mentally incapable of ever riding? – Criggie Sep 24 '20 at 23:02
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    Ruffle, welcome to Stack Exchange! “Nominally” means in name only. And you can argue that Grigory was correct in that usage: this question could be more properly said to deal with survey research than bicycles per se. I mean, I do see your point that this is arguably related to bikes, but we mostly deal with the hows of bikes. I am actually a statistician ... and I am not based in the UK, and I don’t know of any UK surveys dealing with the questions you ask. In any case, this question is unlikely to be answerable on this SE site. – Weiwen Ng Sep 24 '20 at 23:38
  • https://www.cyclinguk.org/statistics#:~:text=5.,for%20any%20other%20age%20group. has probably all the available stats available. "Can and Can't is largely irrelevant compared to Do and Don't in terms of planning and reporting. A survey setting out to answer 'would like to but don't, what is the reason" would likely be as close as you will get. – mattnz Sep 25 '20 at 01:12
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    I do not get the problems people have with this question. Some people can't ride a bike. At all. They have never learned it. It would be a very small percentage, but they exist. My mother (60) is among them. This site is not just about technical question about bicycles as machines, many questions here are about riding itself and indeed about the sciety aspects of bike riding. – Vladimir F Героям слава Sep 25 '20 at 07:23
  • @VladimirF true - but "can" is an ambiguous word. A newborn obviously cannot ride a bike, but they can in the future. Your Mum can ride a bike, if she wanted to make the effort, and invest the time to learn (assuming no motor/balance skills etc that would preclude learning. I suggested to OP that a survey might be a better way to get some useful statistics, but question design is hard and ambiguity can render a survey useless, or worse, misleading. That's what the data science SE site is about. – Criggie Sep 25 '20 at 08:49
  • @Michael yes absolutely - its ambiguous. Question design is hard. – Criggie Sep 29 '20 at 21:05
  • I see OP has left SE. – Criggie Oct 01 '20 at 05:58

2 Answers2

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This may be the closest you're going to get. It's not an exact match:

  • It's England not Britain
  • It's not how many can ride a bike, but how many do

Sport England's Active Lives survey says that 6 million adults in England cycled for leisure/sport and 3 million for travel at least twice in 28 days, over the year to November 2019. Extrapolating from demographic data for England, there were about 43.6 millions adults in England in 2019, which means something like just 14--20% of English adults ride at least twice a month (13.6% assumes that all the "travel" riders also ride for fun, while 20.6% assumes that people only ride for one or the other, never both. The latter is clearly unrealistic, so I'd assume closer to the lower figure.

This is in decent agreement with 2018 figures saying 11% rode at least once pre week (8% leisure, 6% travel). These 2018 figures are at leats partly based on an earlier version of the Active Lives study.

I think it would be reasonably accurate to assume the same proportions across the UK as in England.

Trying to figure out how many can ride is harder, but I'll have a go. There are hints from recent data suggesting many people got back on their bikes in lockdown. Figures from Scotland show that in some places recorded trips doubled, however that could just be the same riders going out more. Cycling Industry News reports comparable figures.

A survey for HSBC/British Cycling (reported in BikeBiz) says that 19% of UK commuters are more likely to cycle to work post lockdown. That strongly implies that at least 19% of commuters are capable of cycling.

Of course, when you consider whether someone can ride, you have to think about whether they can wobble along a deserted path, nip through traffic, or somewhere in between. Crucially the context in which you ask someone will affect their answer - I'd expect a larger proportion of people to say they could ride if prompted by pictures of a nice peaceful path, compared to a rush-hour city.

Realistically, based on what I've quoted above and in the absence of hard figures, I'd estimate that a bit over 20% are capable of riding for practical purposes, while far more can handle a bike in ideal circumstances.

Chris H
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  • I've tracked down what stats I can for you, but I'm not all that pleased with what I've found. I had a rough idea of what to look for when pondering a related question Are there statistics on cycling trip distances? – Chris H Sep 24 '20 at 21:29
  • Many thanks for this work, @ChrisH. A nice peaceful path was the kind of criterion I was thinking of, or those who would answer "Yes" to "Can you ride a bike?" if shown a photo of such a path. I have family members who haven't ridden for 20 years but I'd still count them as able given that once learnt the skill is rarely forgotten, even if some get too weak in old age. An aunt hadn't ridden a bike for 25 years and had never ridden much anyway, but she got on mine just to see if she could manage and she rode 100m and back without a problem. She was a bit wobbly for the first 10m but that's all. –  Sep 24 '20 at 23:13
  • @ruffle I have neighbours like that. – Chris H Sep 25 '20 at 06:40
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The number who 'can' ride is likely to be at least 80% and probably higher. For many years 'cycling proficiency' was part of the primary school curriculum.

Whilst it is no longer part of the curriculum, the government plan to make training available to all primary school pupils. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/every-child-in-england-to-be-offered-cycle-training

Andy P
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    Thanks, @AndyP. According to that document, 80% of children in Britain aged between 8 and 10 own a bike. Cycling UK cite a figure from the National Transport Survey of 83% ownership for those aged 5-10 in England. I am still looking through the NTS stats but they say 69% aged 11-16 have access to a bike. This supports your "likely to be at least 80% and probably higher". –  Sep 26 '20 at 09:25