We held our fourth practitioner group meeting at Palestra – many thanks to Stephanie and Alex from TfL for organising the room and refreshments for us. There were around 30 people present; some had been to all four of our meetings while for a few this was their first. Kicking off with thoughts about ‘cycling as the future as well as the past’ we moved onto my talk about cycling and shifts in production and consumption. Based on a current paper, this presentation argued that in contexts where many routine jobs involve emotional and mental (but not physical) labour, the car may be losing its aspirational status. This generated lots of discussion. I then talked about how contexts matter for cycling, contrasting Hackney and Hull in terms of their everyday cycling cultures.

Justin spoke about his project ‘Parenting and Travel Choices’, which looks at couples in Newham and Hackney expecting their first child, and how this affects their mobility choices. One key theme is the extent to which pregnant women’s mobility is shaped by other people’s expectations of what is safe and appropriate for them. This also produced plenty of comment and discussion.

After the tea break (and lovely cakes) Kat’s talk was based on her DIY bike paper, highlighting the ingenuity of cyclists in navigating often motor-dominated contexts. Dealing with theft was one issue covered, generating empathetic reactions among many present. Kat drew on examples of how cyclists try and avoid theft through, for example, making the bicycle look old, personally specific, or uncared-for; other tactics for dealing with theft include minimising one’s emotional attachment to the bicycle.

Finally I summed up letting people know what the research group was doing next both on the Cycling Cultures project and in our other work – including our new Masters course, work on cycle training and on transport modelling, and on bike hire and cargo bikes. And the prize draw – a lovely bicycle-themed tea towel – was won by Paul Lowe.

Thanks to everyone who has come to our practitioner meetings. We hope you have found them useful and interesting – we certainly have. My slides can be viewed here and here. Justin’s are here and Kat’s here.

As Rachel mentioned below, we started the Third Practitioner Forum with a bike ride around Hull. Allan did a fantastic job of guiding the group around the city, riverside, parks and surrounding suburbia. As many conference participants had never before been to Hull, it provided a terrific introduction to the city from the saddle. A few stats: 14 people took part, almost half were on Bromptons, the ride took over 2 hours and we covered 14.7 miles (23.7km). Highlights for me included stopping for cake and hot drinks at the East Park cafe, overhearing pedestrians asking “What are all the little bikes doing?”, group cycling in calm and considerate traffic (not one driver beeped us) and acquiring spare gloves for my very cold hands (at one stage I was wearing 4 odd ones – A big thankyou to Pauline and Robin).

Thanks to Allan for mapping the route. A more interactive version of the map is here

Riders gathering at Hull train station

Allan shares some of the history of the Humber

Cycling along part of Hull’s 60km off-road cycle network

Arriving at East Park cafe for some well earned snacks

Cycling along Newland Avenue which has a series of innovative traffic calming measures in place

Taking in the view on the riverside path

Heading back into town
(image by Mark Strong, Transport Initiatives)

(image by Mark Strong, Transport Initiatives)

Our third practitioner meeting was – though I say it myself – a lot of fun. We kicked off in the morning with a bike ride thanks to Allan, with support from Paul and Gisele. (Extra thanks to Allan for nipping off home to pick up a spare Brompton to lend out!) This was a real bonus – photos to follow – and got us all in the mood for talking about cycling.

After a warming lunch in Hull’s Guildhall, we got onto serious business – our “Who am I” match-up. Most people had, as asked, brought a picture with them that represented how they saw themselves as a cyclist. The task was then, in teams, to match the name to the picture. Some pictures were printed, some photocopied, some – like Andy’s – hand drawn!

Cartoons and book illustrations also appeared: Pauline chose for her image an illustration by Quentin Blake of ‘Mrs Armitage on Wheels‘; which tells the story of how ‘the eccentric heroine sets out on her bike followed by Breakspear the dog. But her bicycle always seems to be in need of improvement…when she adds the mast and sail she really rides into trouble.’

After the match-up, we spoke about where the project had got up to, and handed out lots of stuff including the Cycling Policy Review, Hull and Hackney zines, and join-up postcards. We had a workshop where people discussed research needs, and a couple of sessions where I spoke on the Group Rides paper and Kat spoke on the Zombies paper. Both these are available in draft form on request.

Here’s the slides from the intro and group rides presentations; below are some notes based on the workshop presentations (thanks, Mark and Alix). More detailed transcripts to follow in due course – and thanks all for coming, we hope you enjoyed it too.

Notes on workshops

From first and second groups:
Areas already considered (i.e. where further research might be helpful)
• Age-related attitudes to cycling
• Generation gap – do positive attitudes to cycling skip a generation (i.e. grandparents & grandchildren)?
• In particular is cycling culture in Hull inherited/passed down?
• Demographics – impact of settled population (e.g. Hull) compared to places w. high turnover (e.g. Hackney).
• Solitary cycling vs. groups
Areas for new research
• In-depth look at family cycling – can parents be reached through children
• Attitudes to cycle training – e.g. in Hull issue of people not taking up training even when it’s free. Is this a gender issue?
• Peer group pressure to cycle or not (e.g. new residential development in outer Cambridge with low cycling levels)
• Personality types – are cyclists aspirational, early adopters, social misfits (!?). Does this change with age/location? Map cycling levels against personality types…
• Triggers to start/stop cycling as means of transport
• Relationship between attitude and type of bike (hack, “trendy”/fixed-wheel, adopted,
• Impact of bike theft on attitudes to cycling
• Perceptions of fear/risk (gender based?)

From third group
• Fashions – using ideas / ‘normals’ (norms) from one place, and creating “fetish”.
• By researching, you effect change (measurable?)
• Means of distribution of ideas and results to support attitude change work through local authority practitioners and others.
• Patterns of work (employment) effect on commuting patterns – large employers.
• Effect of infrastructure, e.g. cycle parking provision on cycling levels – really?
• Topography – Switzerland vs Netherlands vs Bristol vs Hull
• Effect of Health Agenda….
• Effect of relationship with nature
• Effect of traffic-free routes?
• Inherent culture – effect on cycling
• Does Cycling Culture fit in with MOSAIC marketing tools at all?
• Champions – well-known, ‘proud to cycle’ figures. Do these effect a change or just add to a variety of add-on reasons.
• Costumes – Hi-vis / safety; fashions; hi-tech gear? Can be given as an excuse (not to cycle). Is it a reason (to cycle)if you’re really keen?
• Normalising cycling.

We recorded the talks we gave at the second practitioner meeting, and here are some tidied up transcripts, which might be of interest. Please note that this is what we said, so it’s not necessarily grammatically correct written English! But we thought it would be nice to provide a record of the talks available to people who had and hadn’t been at the meeting.

There’s three files – the first presentation, the talk on outputs, and the second presentation.

Presentation 1: “Good cycling, bad cyclists?”

Talk on Cycling Cultures outputs

Second presentation: “Cycling citizenship”

We asked participants of Forum No.2 to bring an object and tell a story that was either directly related to their own bike practice or to a bike culture in their local area. Everyone responded to this task in a creative way.

Here are a few examples of Bike Show and Tell:

“My girlfriend and I have been talking about getting married and I gave her one of these. I painted a little message on it and got her to close her eyes and put it on her finger (laughing) in lieu of the real ring. It’s not the most expensive one she’s had but it is certainly the biggest.”

“There is a growing culture of mobile technology and cycling culture. There are now eleven apps on the iphone for the London Cycle Hire Scheme. They do things like show you where your nearest docking point is and how many bikes are available. You can find and plan routes. There is an app where you can find your nearest bike shop and you can also add photos. You know for a long time cars have had sat navs and I think cyclists now want to know where to go.”

“This is all the way from Indonesia. It really works [turns wheels]. My brother gave it to me because he is living there at the moment. It sits in my office. It’s a sit up and beg bike and I have noticed in Leighton Linslade that more and more people are wanting these bikes. When I went for my bike which looks very similar to that, I had to pay extra to have you know this shape handle bar which suits my wrists a bit better than the straight ones. I get very upset about the ergonomics of bicycles because they are wrong, they’re just wrong (laughs). One of the things I wanted to bring forth to this meeting is the culture that is developing in our town of ladies going off to cycle for a coffee. We’ve got one group that meets on a Tuesday which is the outcome of a get-back-into-cycling course that we ran for adults and it all turned out to be ladies in the end… women, ladies, mothers. They drop their children off at school and leave at ten o’clock. They used to go a couple of miles and have a coffee in the garden centre. Now they are going about fifteen miles, up the hill and down and out to all the villages surrounding, having a cup of coffee and then cycling the fifteen miles back. All in a couple of hours. It just goes to show that most of them said, “I won’t cycle very far, I will just go down to the canal with my children” and now they are doing this. It’s that culture of coffee and cycling… isn’t that nice.”

“I’ve bought my Carradice saddle bag. It is a classic really, is it a design classic. Along with Brooks it just looks beautiful to me. It’s extremely functional, very hard wearing. You can take it on and off your bike quite easily and this is my little strappy thing to go on it that turns it into a messenger bag for the over fifties (laughing). They are not expensive and Ortlieb don’t make really a saddle bag. Everyone seems to go for Ortlieb because it is waterproof and its German but in fact you know we’ve got great local products. People ask me where I got this from quite regularly and they don’t stock it in most shops, it’s mostly mail order but you know it has tremendous meaning and culture and history attached to it and that’s why I brought it.”

“This is my Barclays Cycle Hire Scheme token. I actually rode one for the first time today from City Thames Link Brighton Train to here. There is a docking station about two minutes walk on this side and I found it great. But for someone who likes to cycle quite fast the bikes weren’t exactly conducive to my cycling style. I have to be more laid back and adopt a different cycling culture, not rushing everywhere which probably isn’t good for me anyway.”

“This is about memories but it’s also about welcome and how important it is to welcome cyclists. If you travel from Hungry to Serbia you expect to experience a rough time in Serbia but low and behold when you cross the border you come across a fantastic huge road sign which actually welcomes all cyclists. It doesn’t just do that it. All the way to Belgrade there are little signs that are fairly technical with distance and destination but actually give lots of little poems. Each sign has a different poem and they are all related to the bicycle. So you’ve got Kennedy and people saying how great the bicycle is and John Ford and there’s one by a French philosopher who talks about a long journey being a great eye opener to all habits and a great challenge for all prejudices. The point I am trying to make is how important signing is and how important it is to welcome somebody. It stuck in my mind because I think it’s fantastic.”

“This event took place a couple of weekends ago – the Kidical Mass. It is the first one we had in Glasgow. I think it gives you a sense of what it is about. There is a lot of community based action, impetus and enthusiasm for cycling and everything that it can do to benefit our urban environment.”

Thanks to all the people quoted here and to everyone else for contributing their stories.

Workshop two asked participants to respond to questions raised by the “Cycling citizenship” paper. In particular, we asked participants to respond to the following:

How does cycling affect local environments?
Does cycling offer a distinctive ‘view from the saddle’?
Why might some people find it hard to connect transport choices to wider environmental issues?
What (if anything!) might linking cycling to citizenship offer practitioners?

Some of the comments made by participants are outlined below in note form – we hope to provide a more detailed writeup once we have transcribed the workshop discussions.

How does cycling affect local environments?
- Nicer
- Quieter
- Civilised
- Sociable
- Interactive
- Human contact
- Less polluted
- Friendly
- Divisive – walkers/cyclists
- Annoying other cyclists
- Club cyclists/commuters – user types

- Eyes on the street
- Messy
- Secure by design, cul de sacs
- Less polluted, less congested
- Different pace (closer to pedestrian pace)
- More human
- But pedestrians resent sharing space

- Enviro-impact of infrastructure
- Local distinctiveness
- Human scale
- Streets, curbs and paths and public spaces

Does cycling offer a distinctive ‘view from the saddle’?

- All transport provides a different view
- Awareness of environment – smell, sounds
- Cities shrink on a bike

- Yes!
- Cover ground
- See stuff
- Sights/ smells

- Eye contact
- Senses – hearing, smelling, seeing, tasting
- Extends horizon – 360degrees
- Higher up
Natural environment
- Notice
- Freedom
- Feeling of terrain – potholes, micro terrain
- Alert
- Alive
- Mental health
- Defined by who we are?/ What we wear?
- Interactive
- Distinctive
- “Hinterlands”
- Feel small in busy traffic
- Awareness of weather

Why might some people find it hard to connect transport choices to wider environmental issues?

- I wanna go……
- “The car in front’s the problem”
- “Mine’s essential”
- “My contribution is small” – only doing one journey
- Knowledge – info about alternate choices/ hard to access alternatives
- Habit – I know this – it’s easier!
- Can connect to local, but not global
- Perceptions of weather, hazards (moral pressure, safety for children), practicability, fashionable
- Complicated and pressurized lives
- “I’m doing this trip because I always do it” “ I haven’t time to think| – Just in time travel decisions
- Built environment is pro-motor
- Advertising and social pressures

- Being seen as leftie/greenie
- Fear of change?
- Doing differently
- Decision makers/individuals
- “Not seen as normal”

- Recycling and rubbish awareness is widely accepted
- Cycling is not yet accepted by Govt.

What (if anything!) might linking cycling to citizenship offer practitioners?

- something to offer politicians (e.g. eyes on the street)

- Cycling in London?/ Elsewhere?
- “Ride a bike, be a good citizen?”
- Personal responsibility and your impact on others/ your community
- Segmentation [people influenced by others?]
- Healthy – not such a drain on society
- “Big Society?”

- Eco-citizenship
o responsible with rights
o small but significant contribution
o being part of the community
- Puts a positive slant on above
- Looking at bigger picture of situation
o Architectural liaison officer
o Questioning safety of new cycle routes
- “Civilised” society
o more human contact
o upping “happiness”

Workshop one asked participants to respond to questions raised by the “Good cycling, bad cyclists?” paper. In particular, we asked participants to respond to the following:

What are the perceptions of cycling and cyclists where you live and work?
Are you, or anyone else addressing this issue? How?
How have perceptions of cycling and cyclists changed?
What, if anything, needs to be done?

Some of the comments made by participants are outlined below in note form – we hope to provide a more detailed writeup once we have transcribed the workshop discussions.

What are the perceptions of cycling and cyclists where you live and work?
- People seem to be very judgmental of themselves as cyclists and cyclists in general
- The vulnerability of cyclists is a pre-occupation of my workplace (TFL)
- There is a difference when you ride the ‘Boris Bikes’ – people have a different opinion of you
o Public spirited
o Generates interest and excitement
o Feel safer
o Early adopter
o Open-minded vs closed minded
- Cycling chic in Cambridge – fashion, design, architecture
- “Multi-modalist” – Do you think of commuters as one type of transport users or are we moving away from this?

- What are we doing? Rural/suburban
- More normal/ visibility
- Infrastructure

- Positives and negatives have both increased (eg. LL)
- Demographics influence attitudes
- “Cyclist” as a “specialist” activity
- Superficial attitudes?
- Invisible until you do something wrong

Are you, or anyone else addressing this issue? How?

- Boris Bikes – see above
- TFL and rule breakers – persistent offenders. Not enough has been done.
- Be more open-minded about ‘types’ of cyclists
- Make the most of opportunities
- Issue of rule breakers in Cambridge – pictograms on bookmarks for foreign students
- Research at TFL shows that:
o Sensible choice to use a bike to enjoy the countryside
o Sensible choice to drive to park-and-ride business park
o Never the twain shall meet.
- Japan: cycling on footpaths is accepted however there is a change in law and policy
- Safer cycling on footways – use of planters to avoid conflict with pedestrians

- Schools and community programs
- Tour of Britain
- Visiting schools

- Use of words/categories to avoid “compartmentalism”
- Targeted cycle processes. Eg. Training at schools/ clubs/ clubs in targeted areas
- Wearing “ordinary” clothes
- Fashion accessories – commercial potential

How have perceptions of cycling and cyclists changed?

- Not so unusual – change over the last 10-15 years – especially certain areas. Eg. London
- Media use of cyclists
- Public figures/celebs using bikes
- Wider variety of bikes
- Greater awareness of environmental issues

- London – Style changes
- Social class – underlying factor
- Hackney – deprived. Aspiration is a car

- Evening Standard – dramatic attitude change!
- Politics
- Cambridge – Editor of Cambridge Evening News was on the judging panel of new bridge design.

What, if anything, needs to be done?

- Get key people with vested interests on-side. eg. Newspaper editors
- Infrastructure is important:
o Fear of traffic
o Space re-allocation. 3 lanes of traffic to 2 lanes of traffic = 2m cycle lane

- Bus backs – ASLs/ Feeding good news stories
- Refugees – fitted bikes, couldn’t afford vehicle/ public transport, training linked in
- Bikeability – perceptions
- PCT – cycling on prescription. Cycle to your hearts content
- Think cycling
- Personalities and media helping – John Snow, Olympic medalists, Boris
- Mainstream inclusion gets more people cycling

- Training non-cyclists also. Eg. HGV drivers and driving instructors
- Free cycling training for children and parents. Make it part of the curriculum
- Infrastructure….?

At the practitioner group meeting, we had two workshops relating to issues arising from the research project. Each workshop was kicked off by a short presentation (15 minutes). Because we wanted the workshop to be practitioner-focused and interactive, we didn’t do the traditional talk-plus-questions. Instead we used the talks as a springboard for posing questions to practitioners, allowing them to respond to the issues raised in the presentations.

Here are the slides from the presentations: notes from the presentation workshops to follow soon.

“Good cycling, bad cyclists?” – this presentation raised the issue of why, when cycling seemed to be part of the policy mainstream, cyclists remain stigmatised. It uses data from Hull and Cambridge to demonstrate how uncomfortable a “cycling identity” can be for people.

“Cycling citizenship” – this presentation suggested that cycling could be seen as related to new forms of citizenship, including healthy citizenship and eco-citizenship. Data mostly from Cambridge is used to discuss how cycling might affect people’s relationships to their local social and natural environments.

One of the small groups summarises a discussion.

We held our second practitioner group meeting on 27th September 2010. This time, the meeting focused on emerging findings from the project, with two interactive workshops based around themes from the project ( “Good cycling, bad cyclists?” and “Cycling citizenship”). We got things going with a bike show and tell, which produced an array of fascinating objects, images, and stories. This meeting had attendees from organisations including:

Hull City Council
Brighton & Hove City Council
Cambridge Cycling Campaign
Colin Buchanan
CTC
Cycling England
Cycling Instructor
Cycling Projects
Devon County Council
Hackney Cyclists
LB Hackney
Leighton-Linslade Town Council
Pedals (Nottingham Cycling Campaign)
Transport for London
West Sussex County Council