A palimpsest of bicycles
Even though I was aware of the the high levels of cycling rates in the city, I was nevertheless struck by the high visual presence of bicycles. From my fieldnotes:
The streets are full of bikes. People cycle past, weaving in and around pedestrians in the city centre. Locals shop at the market, buying fruit and vegetables and loading it directly into bike baskets. They spy someone they know and stop and chat, standing over their bikes. Tourists on bikes marked with ‘cycle hire’ stickers stop to read maps and admire historic buildings. Bikes lay scattered on the grass near the river as their owners picnic in the sun. Hundreds of parked bikes line streets. ‘Parked’, however is a deeply inadequate word to describe the layering of bikes here. Palimpsest is better. Cycling in the city feels well established, deeply embedded in place. Bikes lean against buildings, hang from decorative rails in front of historic buildings, layer up to four deep from poles and tumble in frozen formations from Sheffield stands. They tangle together at Sheffield stands to the point where it is hard to tell where one starts and another ends. In absence of space at stands, people lock their bikes and leave them directly outside shops; a u-lock in some cases, a small squiggle lock in others, simply looped around the frame and wheels. While a few are missing parts (wheels, seats, handlebars) most appear well loved and used.
Cars are a constant presence in contemporary urban life. Even if you do not drive, cars litter the streets when parked or are caught in traffic. Constantly passing by, they compose the sonic signature of urban centres. In Cambridge, bicycles occupy a similar presence. They are everywhere and in doing so they draw attention to, and in some ways usurp, the normative role of cars in conventional modal hierarchies.
The visual presence of bikes in Cambridge helps to establish cycling as a legitimate form of transport. It makes it feel normal. It is an theme emerging in interviews whereby people talk about the important role the visual presence of bicycles in the city played in learning to ride a bike or returning to cycling in their mobility biographies.
