Cycling Cultures: Insights and Methods Thursday, 14 February 2019 Book of abstracts Kate Themen - Examining Gendered Cycling Cultures: Piloting Research Methods for a Study into Women’s Competitive Cycling I undertake a sensory auto-ethnography in order to examine ways that sensory and visual methods can contribute to understandings and representations of women’s experiences in physical activity, particularly in amateur and competitive contexts. Having taken part in several sessions at a velodrome, also taking video footage, I use this as the basis for discussion during our analysis to think about the cycle track as a transitory space, and how it is possible to conceptualise ways in which senses and the body are negotiated in this context. What is it like to become a track cyclist, and to progress on the path of becoming competitive? I present empirical data collected in these track sessions to examine the process of developing a sensory grammar in way that can represent the experiences of women in competitive cycling, and importantly, to challenge the pejorative framing of female physicality.
Marlon Moncrieffe - First Black-British female cyclists My observations and research illustrate a dearth of Black-British female (of African, African-Caribbean, or Asian origins) cycling athletes who have progressed to become national champions or have represented Great Britain and become European or World Champions. I present the four female cyclists who have been able to make this progression at Junior and Senior levels in the sport. However, I will question their sparsity in comparison to the more numerous and well known Black-British females athletes in elite Athletics. These female athletes have been extremely successful as national, European, World and Olympic champions representing Great Britain. National accolades have been bestowed upon them such as Damehoods, BBC TV Sports Personality of the Year Awards, MBEs, OBEs and CBEs. Why have there been hardly any Black-British female elite road and track cyclists gracing the sport as icons in a similar way to Athletics? I will showcase the life-history narrative of one Black-British cycling champion from my research and recent
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exhibition: ‘Made in Britain – Uncovering the Life Histories of Black-British Champions in Cycling’. This will provide an insight to her entry into the sport; her successes; her barriers; and where the haemorrhage seems to have occurred to her potentially successful career as an elite cyclist, future rolemodel and inspiration.
Nadia Williams - Media discourses and gendered cycling We are all engaged in a constant conversation with the world around us. Our eyes, ears, noses, mouths and skins receive an endless stream of messages through an array of channels, and we send messages in every single thing we do and say. This conversation plays a role in shaping our culture, but at the same time our culture shapes the conversation, or discourse. Therefore analysis of the discourse, of the array of messages flowing to and from people in various ways, can give us insight into a culture surrounding an aspect of a given society. My postgraduate research project is a study of the discourse related to cycling and cyclists. It has taken a fascinating turn in its first year. In this presentation I will discuss the social dynamics that have emerged in my study, and my findings’ relevance to gender.
Cosmin Popan - Bicycle Utopias: Imagining Fast and Slow Cycling Futures This presentation investigates how notions of speed and fast cycling located at the forefront of recent ‘cycle boom’ are entangled with visions of innovative mobilities and urban sustainability. The contemporary institutionally-driven push for cycling stems from concerns regarding health, pollution or global warming as well as from efforts to fight congestion, support urban regeneration and put economies back on track. Faster and seamless cycling mobilities are thus framed as innovations that keep our cities on the move while implicitly assisting their economic growth. The presentation uses a historical lens to problematise current and past discourses, practices and policies on cycling, speed and innovation while advancing slowness and a slow cycling utopia as a heuristic framework to reconsider cycling futures. It uses discourse analysis of past and present cultural representations of cycling, as well as analysis of policy documents to reveal power relations and question the underlying assumptions in currently trending visions of cycling. Two policy areas where cycling speed legitimises the ideology of economic growth are examined: the transport policies in London and the British cycling economy. Science-fiction literature, graphic novels and other artistic representations are alternatively used to suggest that slow cycling futures are equally possible. They are an invitation to imagine and outline alternatives to the current narratives and practices of speed embedded in late capitalist societies.
Tiffany F. Lam - Cycling London: A gender lens Cycling has been rising on policy agendas in cities worldwide. London’s “cycling revolution”—characterised by former Mayor Boris Johnson’s
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unprecedented investment in cycling infrastructure—garnered international attention. Despite London’s increased investments and overall growth in cycling, a gender gap persists whereby men make 74% of cycling trips. This begs the question: For whom was there a cycling revolution in London? How will this administration ensure inclusive growth in cycling? My research critiques cycling policy and infrastructure practices in London from an intersectional gender perspective that considers the ways in which gender combines with other aspects of identity to contour urban cycling. I argue that an implicit male bias is embedded in London’s cycling paradigm, which produces unequal cycling experiences. To be a truly sustainable transport mode, cycling must be inclusive. As such, issues around gender and inclusion must foreground cycling policy and discourse in a rapidly growing and diversifying London.
Anna Nikolaeva - Smart cycling: meaning, experience and governance The future of cycling is about to change. At least, if we believe the multitude of innovators, start-ups, industries, policy actors and consultants proposing to harness the power of digital techniques to improve and transform cycling experiences and infrastructures. This ‘smartification’ of cycling is increasingly attracting attention and investment as cities experiment with bikeshares and smart infrastructures, powered by ICT and IoT technologies. However, proposed cycling futures receive little critical scrutiny. Here, we fill this gap by examining how innovations are believed to change the way cycling is practiced, made sense of and governed. We analyse texts on smart cycling innovations and outline changes envisioned by innovators. Having identified tensions between and within a range of promised futures, we conclude that smart cycling futures are multiple and contested, just as cycling presents are, offering diverse ideas about an ideal cycling experience, relationships with other road users, mode of governing cycling etc.
Bruce Bennett - ‘Riding like a girl’: Women and cycling on film Bicycles appear throughout the history of the cinema from the 1890s onwards and women cyclists appear in many of these films. Films that depict women and girls on bikes are often centrally concerned with the emancipatory potential of this machine to mobilise the rider, giving her greater agency and independence. However, while the image of a woman on a bicycle is an enduring sign of the optimism of first-wave feminism, it is also an image laced with ambiguity, a symbolic threat to the established social order, and what is evident from a historical survey of images of women cyclists in visual culture is that this figure remains a troubling one. This paper will discuss some key films in which the themes of gender and women’s social status are explored through the figure of the female cyclist.
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