On Wednesday Kat and I were very kindly given a bike tour of the city by Andy from the City Council. Like the tour of Hull provided by Allan last year, this was a great way to quickly get a sense of the different areas and how they are connected. While Bristol suffers from severance and blight due to major roads mostly built in the 1960s and 70s (such as the M32 which cuts into the heart of the city) it also benefits from being compact for a large city with some wonderful green spaces like Oldbury Court and Ashton Court. Many of these can be cycled through.

Coming soon: a link to view the map and some pictures that I took en route.

The route – and many thanks to Andy for so skilfully planning it – allowed us to ride fairly slowly around the city for 40km, taking in around 10 (I think!) parks or green spaces of varying sizes and types.

A number of our interviewees refer to the importance of being able to ride in a leisurely or sociable fashion in or near urban areas (a theme discussed in our ‘Rides’ paper currently under peer review). For example, several people in Bristol have already described to us how a commute route becomes a very different experience ridden with friends rather than alone; heading out slowly to a park or pub rather than to your office or factory. Being able to have diverse cycling experiences in the same area can both be a low-impact form of leisure or tourism, and a way that people continue to experience cycling as more than ‘just transport’, however important it is to them also as a form of transport.

Today we cycled from Bristol to Bath and back on the Railway path, a 13mile off-road smooth surfaced 3metre wide path. The route is well signposted from Castle Park; we only missed one turn before we found the main off-road section. There are benches for picnics and play areas for children, cafes in old railway buildings, information boards highlighting local history and wildlife, views out to the countryside, down to flowing rivers and dark damp tunnels. The printed brochure for the route indicates regular water fountains to fill up bottles and locality of toilets as well. We passed lots of cyclists; including families with children on their own bikes, tag-alongs and bike seats. There were also lots of walkers out enjoying the lovely summery weather.

And again with pics:

I had a terrific day yesterday cycling 58.2 miles with over 20 Bristol Thursday Old Time cyclists for 7 hours. The ride featured a pretty substantial hill called ‘The Wrangle’, lunch and cider in the garden of The Hunters Lodge (which included for me a piece of cheese almost the size of my head), lots of lovely conversations with riders and a flying downhill tour of the Cheddar Gorge. Plus it was a gorgeous sunny day. I am looking forward to joining the group again in June (but will next time remember to wear sunscreen!)

And again with pics:

This looks better BIG .

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* The Bristol Thursday Old Time Cyclists have a lovely write up of the ride and more pictures here .

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There has been a noticeable lack of hills in our fieldsites to date. A respondent in Hull once talked about a hill and when I asked for more detail I discovered she meant an overpass. Similarly, there were few inclines in Hackney. I was of course aware that Bristol presents a unique topographical contrast but I wasn’t entirely prepared for such unexpected verticality today* (with full backpack and stomach). My planned routes certainly didn’t look hilly on the map. Maps lie.

No doubt I’ll work my way through the list of Bristol’s killer hills during my stay or if a ridiculous mood takes me I’ll attempt The Bastard Hills of Bristol in one fierce go.

I’ll be interested to learn about how locals navigate the city and beyond; what bikes they use, how they carry stuff, when they travel, how they worked out the best routes and what kinds of rude words they say when they near the top.

*Happy I brought the geared bike and not the fixed.

Getting lost is an an ethnographic method.

Bristol was chosen because it has had a lot going on policy-wise: Greater Bristol was selected as the UK’s first  “Cycling City”, which has meant a total of £22.8 million over three years (including local authority funding) for cycling infrastructure, training, and promotion. This programme will be finishing as we do our Bristol fieldwork, so it will be interesting to study people’s perceptions of its effects on cycling experiences and places in Bristol.

Sustrans was born in the area in July 1977 as was  Cyclebag (Cycle Bristol Action Group). Bristol is also home to UWE’s Centre for Transport and Society, which is involved in a variety ofinteresting cycling-related projects.

Unlike the other three sites, Bristol is hilly and on the relatively wet west side of the country, and yet cycling rates are still double the national average.