When I went to China in 1996, there were bikes everywhere. They were the old sit up and beg type, rod brakes, single gear, full mudguards etc Everything could be fixed with a hammer, a screwdriver and a spanner. People rode 2 up, and at essentially a fast walking pace. People didn't have padlocks, you just paid some bike parking lot attendant guy a fraction of a penny and he would put a paper ticket in your brake lever to indicate you paid. When I went back in the 2000s, the old school bikes were replaced with BSOs with front and rear suspension, but they were for kids/young adults as most adults had upgraded to motor scooters. When I went back a few years ago, it was electric and petrol scooters and I didn't really see any bikes, other than for small kids. Now it's electric cars, bikes and scooters, and they all connect to your phone. Utility bikes are in economic terms are inferior goods, the more your income rises, the less you want one.
I learnt about bikes by breaking my own bikes until I could fix them. You just fiddled with the cables until things worked, there were no manuals, and you just had to figure things out. Now I'd say that modern bike maintenance is beyond the limit of what can be done intuitively. Everything I do now is after watching at least 2 or 3 instructional videos on youtube. There are too many specialised bits, and non interchangeable parts. There's always the hope that 3d printing will actually manage to make something hard wearing but most people won't have access. Now if a bike breaks it gets binned. My frames either crack or the bike gets nicked.
Currently London is awash with hordes of food delivery riders riding illegal bikes, now the batteries are starting to blow up cause fire, and cause fatalities in Houses of mulitple occupation, there will be a crackdown, and hopefully licensing. These bike riders aren't buying parts from bike shops, they can't fix or service the bikes themselves, there's some shady parallel e bike world we know nothing about. However the element that will change over the next 20 years, will be they will remove the human, and some AI guidance system will get your takeaway to you.
The bikes that will still exisit in 25 years time will be rental bikes such as Boris bikes/lime bikes, with maintenance being handled by roving bands of robots.
The current spate of carbon electronic shifting road bikes I predict will go the way of the penny farthing. Museum pieces only.
Bromptons will still be around of course, but they will be the same price as a small flat.
