Thursday Thoughts: You are Very Special

Let’s look at some numbers.

Population of Earth = 7,100,000,000

Population Of the USA  = 314,685,167

So just by virtue of being an American, you are in a select group of 4.4% of the world population.

Over half of all Americans are obese to morbidly obese.

Most of you aren’t.  Congratulations!

There are about 2,500,000 cyclists in the USA.

If you are one of them, you are among 0.796% of the US population.

Athletic Cyclists (those who participate in some form of racing, tri-athletics, cyclocross, Velo, mountain biking, organized centuries, randonneuring, touring, etc.) account for about 15% of all cyclists.

If you are in that crowd,  you are in the top 0.12% of the US population.

That’s true even if you are always dead last in your event.

Baseball fans watch baseball.  Football fans watch football.  We have lots of sports fans in this country, but most of them are fans of spectator sports.  That is to say that they do not participate in the sport.  Sure there are exceptions, but on a population basis the rule is fans watch, and players do!

We who are fans of cycling are also, almost always participants in the sport.  We may not compete, but we do ride.