Quick: Picture, in your mind, The Bicycle Rider.
What did you see?
No, we're not going to ask you to describe him (or is it her?). But you may want to compare your picture to the one that the writer Dan Koeppel described when he spent some time with people who ride their bikes not for recreation or for health, but because they have no choice.
Koeppel calls them the "invisible riders", and reports some surprising things:
"The Invisible Riders, for instance, log far more hours than most "serious" cyclists. They do so on equipment most of us wouldn't touch and under the most adverse conditions: at the height of rush hour on the busiest thoroughfares."
Here is a 2-3 minute article that highlights a few more surprises, and links to the longer original article in Bicycling magazine.
Yes, Koeppel wrote about riders in Los Angeles, and Princeton is not Los Angeles. Nevertheless, we do count neighbors who ride their bikes not as a lifestyle choice but because it's their only option. Then there are the people who come from other towns to their Princeton jobs, on their bikes. Because it's their only option.
And this is why safe bicycle infrastructure is so cool: As Enrique Penalosa, the mayor of Bogota, said, "A bikeway is a symbol that shows that a citizen on a $30 bicycle is equally important as a citizen in a $30,000 car."