Cycling – two wheels that changed the world

Cycling

TWO WHEELS THAT CHANGED THE WORLD

CYCLING

Benefits of cycling

IMPROVED HEALTH • Reduced risks of serious diseases • Automatic daily exercise • Fewer sick days

MORE EQUALITY

• Improved mental health

• More affordable transportation, available to most citizens

Cleaner air to breathe

Gender equality

• 75 per cent of the global population are physically equipped to ride a bike

SUSTAINABLE TRAVEL

• An easy way to personal freedom

• One of the simplest things to reduce our own climate emissions

BETTER CITIES

• Less air pollution

• Solution to congestion

Biker: the most energy-efficient creature on the planet

• No pollution • No noise

Improved economy

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CYCLING

The history of cycling their corsets and full-length skirts and dress in more practical garments. A new Turkish divided skirt called bloomers became fashionable.

The modern bicycle made its appearance in the late 19th century. The first models were expensive, and in Sweden only members of the upper class could afford one. The bicycle came to symbolise modernity, virility and innovation.

When bicycles later grew cheaper, they not only enabled people to move around more easily but also facilitated movement across class and gender boundaries.

In the 1930s, the bicycle swept Sweden. Mass production and growing competition between manufacturers pushed prices down and bicycles became accessible to most people. Cycling was at its peak during the Second World War. When war broke out, petrol was rationed and both public transport and private motoring were limited as a result. Neither before nor since have people in Sweden cycled as much as they did in those days.

In rural areas, where most Swedes lived at the end of the 19th century, the bicycle played a more important role than in urban areas. With its arrival, both the labour market and social life improved for the local population. Many had temporary jobs in the farming and forestry sector, and if you had access to a bicycle it was easier to find work.

After the war, however, the golden era of cycling quickly came to an end. Between 1948 and 1958, bike sales were reduced by two thirds and Swedes now bought cars instead. After several decades of decline, the first signs of a new bicycle upswing could be seen in the early 1990s. Since then, interest in bikes has steadily increased. Many say that we are now witnessing a biking renaissance, both in Sweden and in many other countries.

When women began cycling, the bike became a symbol of women’s liberation. Among other things, it hastened the arrival of a more liberal style of fashion that allowed women to remove

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First came the bike...

Emancipation

Henry Ford built the first Ford Model T out of four bicycle wheels and a chain.

‘Let me tell you what I think of bicycling.

I think it has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world. It gives women a feeling of freedom and self-reliance. I stand and rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a wheel… the picture of free, untrammelled womanhood.’

The aeroplane, too, was in part a technical extension of the bicycle. Several bicycle factories such as Peugeot, Opel and Scania began making cars and lorries in the early 20th century.

– Susan B Anthony, American social reformer and feminist, 1896.

The terrible Swede

Tillie Andersson, or ‘The terrible Swede’ as she was also called, was born in 1875 in Skåne in southern Sweden and emigrated as a teenager to the US, where she earned enough to buy a bicycle and started competing. In six-day events, women rode round a velodrome track for two hours a day.

Tillie won several such events up until 1902, when women were banned from competing.

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A cycling city for all noise and are felt to be more congenial. Till Koglin, a researcher specialising in sustainable urban planning at Lund University in Sweden, argues that it is a democratic right to be able to travel around a city on equal terms.

When cars drove into the cities of the world a century ago, the cityscape underwent a fundamental change. Pedestrians were banished to pavements and cyclists to the side of the road. Now that more than half of the global population live in cities, the bicycle has become part of the solution to overcrowding.

‘The bicycle is a democratic mode of transport that everyone can afford,’ he says. ‘If you do not build cycle paths that both young and old can use you are preventing people from exploiting the city to the full. As a cyclist you contribute neither to queues nor emissions, and you are also in closer contact with your fellow beings.’

One of the great advantages of the bicycle is that it takes up very little room. Over the past 50 years, parking places are what have increased most in terms of city space. On average, private cars are used for one hour a day and are parked for the remaining 23 hours.

The question of what makes a good cycling city has surprisingly little to do with the climate and the topography. Cycling in Sweden’s hilly capital, Stockholm, has almost doubled since the turn of the millennium without a single landscape rise being flattened. Umeå in northern Sweden, which has a colder climate and long, dark winters, has one of the highest cycling rates in the country.

Every fifth journey there is by bike.

In the Colombian capital of Bogotá, thousands of parking places were converted into pavements and cycle lanes in the late 1990s. Half a million people now commute to their jobs and schools on bikes.

Cities with many cyclists not only experience less crowding but also have less air pollution and

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CYCLING EQUALITY ‘To build cycle lanes is to invest in equality, since it means that a person on a 30 dollar bicycle has the same chance of getting around as someone in a 30,000 dollar car.’

– Enrique Peñalosa, Mayor of Bogotá, Colombia.

THE SMART ROUTE In a city such as Stockholm, motor roads and parking spaces take up about two thirds of the street surface. Cycle paths and lanes take up just a few per cent.

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Creating a good cycling city Build a cohesive cycle network with broad cycle paths on which it is easy to navigate.

Build safe cycle parking spaces.

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Ensure that cycle paths and lanes are repaired and maintained.

Give bike traffic priority over motor traffic.

Make it easier for people to take their bicycles on public transport.

CYCLING

Sweden’s first ‘cycle house’ in Malmö in southern Sweden – a block of flats and a motel geared to bicycle users – will have only one car parking space, for disabled drivers. Tenants and visitors will instead have access to bicycle parking and a repair shop where they can service their bikes free of charge. Similar houses are underway in other Swedish cities.

Allow right turns for cyclists at red lights and allow cycling in both directions on one-way streets.

Introduce a bikesharing scheme with many lending points so that people can combine public transport and cycling.

Reduce speeds for motor vehicles.

BIKE

Kit chen

A bike kitchen is a communal workshop where you can repair your bicycle free of charge or build a new one out of old parts. The first one was opened in the US, but today there are bike kitchens all over the world. Sweden has eight.

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BNP

BNP

BNP

BNP

BNP

CYCLING

Cycling in rural areas licence are the most isolated group. People with disabilities, youngsters, newly arrived migrants and the elderly are among those whose access to services thereby diminishes.

In Sweden, the decline in cycling in recent years has been most marked in rural areas. Long distances are involved and there are few roads suitable for cycling or walking on. Improved road safety for cars often means worsened safety for cyclists. But bicycle superhighways, electric bicycles and velomobiles may change this.

The trend towards growing dependence on motor cars can be reversed by investing in combined bicycle infrastructure and public transport. What is termed a cycle superhighway is currently being built between the Swedish cities of Malmö and Lund. This is a high-quality cycleway with lighting, few crossroads and wind protection. Superhighways of this kind that facilitate long-distance bike commuting have long been in place in the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark.

Large parts of the Swedish countryside are sparsely populated. At the beginning of the 20th century, the bicycle was the most common form of transport in rural areas, even more prevalent than in urban areas. Today, just eight per cent of travel to work, school and the shops is by bicycle.

Most people are dependent on cars if they want to continue living in rural areas.

The ones currently being built in Sjælland in Denmark are expected to result in almost half a million fewer car journeys, 30,000 fewer days lost through sickness, and a reduction in carbon emissions equal to the amount released by 100 people in a whole year.

‘We used to strive for geographical proximity, but now cars offer us proximity whether people live near one another or not,’ says Bertil Vilhelmson, a senior lecturer at Gothenburg University. When a new shopping centre opens, motorists find that the range of goods initially increases and prices are lower, but if the shopping centre drives local shops out of competition the range is reduced.

Electric bikes, too, have improved the situation for cyclists in rural areas, since headwinds, hills and lack of stamina are less of an obstacle if you have a booster engine. In 2015, sales of electric bicycles increased by 70 per cent in Sweden.

In time, therefore, increased mobility can reduce accessibility. People without a car or a driving

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COUNTRY LIVING

‘I live here because I want to live here, not because I want to drive away from here and destroy the environment in the process.’

– Hanna Mi Jakobson, who lives on the island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea.

IN THE FAST LANE Velomobiles are a type of recumbent bicycle that can reach high speeds.

The speed record for a velomobile is 140 km/h, although a more common speed level is 40 km/h.

GET TO WORK Almost a third of all who work in Sweden commute to cities or across municipal boundaries. The number of commuters increases every year, as does the time they spend commuting.

LIFE BALANCE Cycling requires balance and a certain amount of strength. According to the World Health Organisation, 75 per cent of the global population are physically equipped to ride a bike.

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the bike keeps you healthy How

don’t have time to wear off, as opposed to what happens when you train hard twice a week, for instance.

Cycling to work is one of the simplest ways of prolonging life. Not only do cyclists stay home sick from work less often than car drivers, they are also less prone to public diseases such as heart attacks, obesity and diabetes.

Cycling also affects our mental health. When our muscles work, new synapses form in our brain.

Endorphins are secreted, which improves both sleep and appetite and relieves pain.

The advantage of using a bike as your means of transport is that you automatically get training on a daily basis – without having to think about it.

Cycling at normal speed you expend twice as much energy per hour as when walking, and five times more than when driving a car.

The foremost health effect from cycling is the bodily exercise the cyclist gets when out riding.

But another outcome that is almost as important is that more cycling means less car driving, which reduces the harmful effects of motoring, such as air pollution and noise. If all Stockholmers living within a 15-minute ride from their work were to cycle instead of driving a car, 60 lives a year could be saved – 20 as a result of improved fitness on the part of cyclists and 40 as a result of cleaner air for all city residents.

In particular it is the largest muscles in your body, those in your thigh and backside, that are activated when you ride a bike. When those muscle groups are at work, your whole body is engaged.

Lipoproteins and sugar are broken down, energy consumption increases and inflammations are checked. Your body becomes stronger and you become fitter. If you cycle daily, the effects ‘It’s more important to move about on a daily basis than to train from time to time.’

In Sweden, 5,500 people a year die prematurely as a result of air pollution. Airborne particles lead to respiratory diseases such as asthma, lung cancer, chronic obstructive lung disease (COLD) and cardiovascular diseases. The particles are formed both in the cars’ combustion engines and when car tyres grind down the asphalt.

– Mai-Lis Hellénius, Senior consultant and professor in lifestyle medicine, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm.

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RIDE TO WORK Daily cyclists have 15 per cent less sick leave than noncyclists. Car drivers run a 70 per cent higher risk of suffering a heart attack than cyclists. Swedes who cycle to work exercise on average 260 times a year. Swedes who work out at a gym attend on average 40 training sessions a year.

WIN-WIN Regular cycling reduces the risk of: • Cardiac disease • Type 2 diabetes • High blood pressure • Intestinal cancer • Breast cancer

WORLD TALENT

• Osteoporosis

Jenny Rissveds, Swedish mountain biker, is a world champion who also won the cross-country gold medal at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio.

• Parkinson’s disease • Dementia • Mild depressions, angst and despondency

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Cycling and climate change If the world is to meet its two-degree target – i.e., keeping the increase in the earth’s mean temperature below two degrees compared with the preindustrial era – net fossil emissions from the planet as a whole must be virtually zero by the year 2050.

Global warming will not stop just because more people begin riding bikes, but cycling is one of the simplest and most practical things we can do to reduce our own climate emissions.

We use more energy today than ever before, and we pump up more oil. A fifth of our fossil energy goes to travel and transportation.

Worldwide, Sweden is in tenth place in terms of climate emissions per capita. But our climate footprints vary within Sweden as well. On average, high-income earners release twice the volume of climate gases into the atmosphere as low-income earners. The greatest difference between Swedish households lies in the amount of car and air travel undertaken. If all short car journeys were replaced by bike rides, carbon emissions from personal transport would be reduced by six per cent.

Each day, the nine million people living in Sweden travel a distance equivalent to 500 journeys to the moon and back. Although we travel far every day, almost every second journey we make by car is shorter than five kilometres. A five kilometre bicycle ride takes between 15 and 30 minutes.

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Bikers are the most energy-efficient creatures in the entire animal world.

Much of the traffic in cities around the world involves the transportation of goods.

About half of these transports are small in scale and so short that they could be done by bicycle.

They use just 0.15 calories per gram of body weight in covering a distance of one kilometre. No other animal can equal that. Our nearest rivals are salmon, which use 0.40 calories.

‘When it’s harder to cycle than to drive a car and cheaper to drive a car than to go by train, the system has failed since this makes it more difficult to choose what is ethically right.’

– Björn Lundgren, Doctor of philosophy at the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm.

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Forty-eight per cent of global households possess a bicycle and there are at least 580 million privately owned bikes worldwide. Northern Europe is the region with the largest number, while the fewest bicycles are to be found in Africa and Central Asia.

One African country that stands out is Burkina Faso, where 78 per cent of households have bicycles. Despite the fact that it is one of the poorest countries in the world, Burkina Faso has invested in cycle infrastructure.

CYCLING

Feelings and conflicts in traffic extent to which they feel safe. Where it feels safe to ride a bike, there are more cyclists and a more even gender balance. Where it feels unsafe, fewer people ride bikes and most of them are men.

‘Freedom’ is what most people reply when asked what cycling gives them. Several studies show that we are happier cycling to work than going either by car or bus or walking. The downside of the freedom and pleasure felt by cyclists is the fear and anger cyclists sometimes arouse in others.

In Stockholm, cyclists are often criticised for riding too fast or too close to pedestrians, or for going through red lights. One way of getting them to obey traffic rules is to adapt the infrastructure to meet their needs more closely.

There is a hierarchy in traffic whereby motorists tend to be given priority over cyclists. Streets are adapted to motor traffic instead of bicycle and pedestrian traffic. Many refrain from cycling precisely because they do not feel safe on the roads.

In the Danish capital of Copenhagen, planners are studying how cyclists get around and cycle paths are being designed accordingly. If many cyclists cut across a city square in the same place, for instance, the cycle path is moved there.

By planning traffic so that no one needs to be in doubt as to where they should ride, drive or walk, and by building broad cycleways with room for both fast and slow cyclists, conflicts can be reduced. If efforts are made to improve cycling infrastructure, bikers feel that they are being listened to and are being given the same kind of consideration as other vehicle owners.

In Sweden, cycling has declined among children in recent years but increased among the middleaged. Previously, children tended to cycle to school but now they are more likely to be driven there by car, often because parents feel the traffic situation is unsafe. A number of studies have found a positive correlation between the exercise children get on their way to school and their learning ability.

There is also a clear link between the proportion of cyclists in a city, their gender distribution and the

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A HEAD START

HAPPY WHEELS

‘Instead of looking for adventure and big kicks or the perfect job, we should focus more on our everyday lives. Beginning to cycle to our everyday activities can improve our sense of well-being more than we might imagine.’

How we travel to work affects our sense of emotional well-being more than how much we earn, what education we have and whether we are living with someone or alone.

– Lars E Olsson, Associate professor, psychology, Karlstad.

ON EQUAL TERMS In Amsterdam, almost every second inhabitant rides a bike and there are as many women as men. Many are over 65. In London, motor traffic dominates more. There, only two per cent of the city’s inhabitants are cyclists and three out of four are men.

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How to avoid accidents If the aim is to reduce serious accidents to cyclists, the following are the most effective measures:

Cyclists are unprotected road users. In Sweden, it is this group that has the most accidents. Yet it is less dangerous to ride a bike than many people think.

• Reduce speeds for motor vehicles.

Fatal traffic accidents in Sweden have declined considerably since the authorities introduced their ‘Vision zero’ initiative in 1997 with a view to eliminating all traffic fatalities. However, the cycling accidents haven’t declined as much. Each year between 20 and 30 cyclists die, most of them after being hit by a motor vehicle.

• Build cycle paths/lanes where kerbs or split levels clearly mark the boundary between cyclists, cars and pedestrians.

• Repair holes and bumps, sweep cycle paths/ lanes.

• Show cyclists a green traffic light before other road users.

Most cycling accidents in Sweden are never reported since they are of such a minor nature that medical care is not required. Often, it is gravel, ice or wet leaves that cause cyclists to crash.

Poorly designed and maintained cycle paths and lanes are the most common cause of accidents.

• Build ‘bike boxes’, road markings at traffic lights in front of cars, making cyclists visible and giving them a head start.

• Limit access for heavy vehicles in city centres.

• Cyclists are less vulnerable if they wear helmets and use studded tyres on ice and snow.

The more cyclists there are in a city, the lesser the risk of each having an accident. Where there are many cyclists and pedestrians, serious accidents per cyclist are fewer. Pedestrians and motorists, too, are safer in places where there are many cyclists. One explanation for the phenomenon known as ‘safety in numbers’ is that motorists drive more carefully where there are many cyclists, which reduces serious accidents. Another explanation is that better infrastructure is built where there are large numbers of cyclists, and this too reduces accidents.

Almost half of those killed in cycling accidents would have survived if they had worn helmets.

Yet the wearing of helmets remains a hotly debated issue. Some argue that focusing on helmets is a cheap way of shifting responsibility for safety to the cyclists themselves instead of building the requisite infrastructure to make cycling safer.

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Many people don’t wear their helmets properly.

If it sits wrong or is too loosely strapped on, it is of less use.

Check the following: The strap should be tight so that you can only get two fingers between it and your chin.

WRONG

You should only be able to get two fingers between your eyebrows and the helmet.

Check that the helmet is sitting properly.

Loosen the strap and bow your head forward.

If the helmet stays on, it is fitted properly.

Y

‘If there was a pole or a post in the middle of a motorway there would be uproar, but you keep coming across them on cycle paths.’

The helmet strap should be shaped like a Y and the adjustable clasp should be immediately below the ear.

– Krister Isaksson, Swedish cycling expert.

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two-wheeled profit maker

The

Cycling is the cheapest way of getting around. And it’s not only the cyclist who saves money – every turn of the pedal benefits the country’s economy as a whole. According to the Copenhagen city authorities, it is six times as profitable to ride a bike as to drive a car.

According to the theory of effective speed, the bicycle is faster than the car. Adding together all the time it takes to earn the money required for a car and fuel, parking, repairs, taxes and charges, worktime amounts to several hours for every 10 kilometres you drive.

Road projects are considered viable if their benefit to society is greater than the cost of building them.

When a new motor road is built, the only positive effects are shorter travel times and increased road safety. In the case of cycle paths and lanes, a further benefit is better health, which in turn means more tax revenue and lower care costs.

Several Swedish cycle projects generate ten times as much as they cost to build.

The traditional solution to car queues and backups is to build new roads, but that simply creates more car journeys. Concerns that roads will become too congested if more space is given to cyclists are often unwarranted. The axiom that new roads lead to more traffic and fewer roads to less traffic also applies to cycle paths and lanes.

Just as the bicycle was important in rural areas in Sweden in the early 20th century, it makes a considerable difference to the lives of poor people in other countries today. With a bicycle, they can fetch water and transport crops to the market faster and more easily. Adults can take jobs far from home and children can more easily get to school. For this reason, a number of aid organisations use bicycles to combat poverty.

When drivers begin cycling instead, they also reduce the negative external effects caused by motor vehicles, such as exhaust emissions, noise and crowding. This in turn reduces the costs of accidents, climate change, health effects and travel time. Car travel costs are expected to rise in the future while costs for bicycle travel will fall as a result of climate change and higher fuel prices.

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TRAVEL COSTS Approximate travel costs per year for a private individual in Sweden: Bicycle: SEK 400 –1,000 Public transport: Approximately SEK 10,000 Car: SEK 20,000 –100,000

AIR QUALITY Health problems caused by air pollution in the EU cost €600 billion each year.

A large share of the pollution comes from motor traffic.

FUTURE SAVINGS According to The Institute for Transportation and Development Policy, the countries of the world would save $24 billion during the period 2015–2050 if cycling were to increase in their cities. This sum only covers the value of people getting to their destinations quicker and climate emissions being reduced.

PEDAL POWER ‘Man on a bicycle can go three or four times faster than the pedestrian, but uses five times less energy in the process… Equipped with this tool, man outstrips the efficiency of not only all machines but all other animals as well.’

– Ivan Illich, Philosopher (1926–2002).

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End note It is impossible to know exactly how often and how far people cycle in different places. Bicycle ownership tells you part of the story but by no means all of it. In contrast to motor cars, bicycles are not registered. Nor is it possible to measure motor fuel sales. What you can do is ask people how often they ride bikes. You can also count the number of cyclists on a given street. Different methods yield different figures.

The Swedish Institute (SI) is a public agency that promotes interest and confidence in Sweden around the world. SI seeks to establish co-operation and lasting relations with other countries through strategic communication and exchange in the fields of culture, education, science and business.

This booklet is produced as part of SI’s effort Light on bike which aims to promote biking internationally.

The text is extracted from the Swedish book with the same name. Order more copies of this publication from sharingsweden.se

Image credit Front cover: Ann-Sofi Rosenkvist/imagebank.sweden.se Inside cover: Werner Nystrand/Folio/imagebank.sweden.se Page 3: Elena Ferrer/unsplash, The terrible Swede – Alice Roepke, CC, Cykel/Bike – ArkDes, Ford model T, Flickr CC, Tekniska museet Page 5: Maskot Bildbyrå AB Page 9: Cecilia Larsson Lantz/imagebank.sweden.se Page 11: Joakim Rissveds Page 13: Shutterstock.com, Editorial: Marco Aprile/Shutterstock.com Page 15: Maskot Bildbyrå AB Page 19: Ojo, Johnér Inside cover: Telia/Shutterstock.com Back cover: Plattform, Johnér

© 2016 Lina E. Johansson, Maja Lagercrantz and the Swedish Institute Authors: Lina E. Johansson and Maja Lagercrantz Translation from Swedish: Stephen Croall Editor: Rikard Lagerberg Graphic design: Kidler Printed by Exakta Print, Malmö, Sweden 2017, Art.nr 1459-1

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An exploration of the joys and benefits of cycling, this booklet aims to help promote biking around the world.

While biking is not unique for Swedes or even typically Swedish, the many benefits such as equality, a cleaner environment and improved health are questions that are close to the Swedish heart.