As regular gas edges toward $4 a gallon, bike sales must be booming, right?

Not so fast. Dean Koehlinger, owner of Koehlinger Cycling & Fitness, 5412 Illinois Road, has seen spikes in gas prices going back 35 years, but he's never yet seen a price rise that has turned Americans to bicycle-commuting en masse. So will this boom in gas prices be the tipping point?

“It's a little early to answer that,” Koehlinger said Tuesday. “April sales are up substantially over a year ago,” he said, but he added that inclement weather has delayed the start of bike season for many riders. He anticipates strong sales, but those sales may be for recreational riding, not commuting.

Koehlinger applauds the growth of bikeways and pathways in Allen County. Some on his staff say that new trails in Aboite Township are encouraging more riders to use bikes for errands.

But the trails aren't enough to truly open the city to utilitarian bicycling. “It's still too difficult to commute in the city,” he said.

Cities such as Denver and Madison, Wis., “the cities that have done it really well, have done it with bike lanes, not bike paths,” he said.

According to gasbuddy.com, most regular gas in Fort Wayne on Tuesday afternoon and evening was priced around $3.95 per gallon, another record for the area. Many stations were still at $3.959 this morning.

The national average this morning was $3.758, according to AAA's Web site. The site said Fort Wayne's metro average reached another record today with an average of $3.872.

So what could be behind a 20-cent jump in gas prices?

Each spring, the price of gas rises as refineries switch from gasoline blended for winter to gasoline blended for summer. But that switch is usually complete by May 1 and is only a small part of this year's surge.

“There is nothing really that has happened to justify a 20-cent increase,” said Jim Rink, AAA spokesman. “The biggest factor is the commodities market reaction to speculation of how high the price of oil is going to go.”

Rink said reports — such as last week's prediction by Goldman Sachs that the price of oil could climb to $200 per barrel in the next six to 24 months — are now self-fulfilling prophecies.

But several macro-factors underlie rising oil prices, said Doug MacIntyre, senior oil market analyst for the Energy Information Administration, the statistical and analytical wing of the U.S. Department of Energy.

Global demand is increasing, while supply is operating at almost-full capacity. Supply disruptions in Nigeria and elsewhere have made the market jittery. And the declining value of the U.S. dollar makes oil more expensive.

Oil prices shot to a new record, near $127 a barrel, Tuesday on concerns that Iran may consider cutting crude oil production.

Gas prices, meanwhile, rose to a new record nationwide average Tuesday, over $3.73 a gallon.

Rising gas prices came up during Fort Wayne City Council's meeting Tuesday in council members' comments at the close of the meeting.

Councilman Glynn Hines, D-6th, said the city has to treat the rising cost of gasoline as an urgent matter. The city should encourage carpooling and using mass transit. And when budget time comes this summer, council members should take a hard look at take-home police cars and the fuel the city pays for. He said that perhaps police officers with take-home cars should start paying something toward the cost of gas.

Councilman Mitch Harper, R-4th, said he rode his bicycle from Aboite Township to the meeting. It took him only 10-15 minutes longer than driving through the road work on Jefferson Boulevard would have taken.