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news
lmnh Whitechapel.jpgCommuter, pootler or racer: Why your bike is your identity
If you’d be unusually upset if your bike was stolen, there may be a reason for that, according to new research.
A cyclist’s bike often becomes an important part of their identity, according to a student at the University of Alberta.
Cyclist Karly Coleman, writing her master’s thesis on how rider identities are linked with their bicycles, found that in the same way one might identify with being a Volkswagen driver or a BMW driver, a cyclist might have a strong feeling about being a commuter, or a racer.
She told the Edmonton Journal: “The Ferrari drivers are typically some kind of person and the Volkswagen owners who are another type of person, probably not the same, they wouldn’t necessarily hang out in the same bar.
“And you get that with cyclists. Cyclists who are racers and cyclists who are commuters, they don’t really hang out that much.”
She added: “I grew up in northern Saskatchewan where the dominant culture is more automobile-oriented.
“So when I was 16, I got a car and cars were cool to have … I lived 4-1/2 miles out of town. No one even thought that you would ride your bicycle 4-1/2 miles.”
In Edmonton, Canada, where she moved to study however, the hipster culture is heavily bike-orientated, and she became fascinated by the phenomenon.
When no one considers cycling to be a viable transportation option, you end up with cities that are very unfriendly to cyclists, said Coleman, but she said that paradigm is changing.
“Bicycling infrastructure in particular gets created because people talk about it,” she said.
“Watching somebody else use that infrastructure in a role-model kind of way, then you would use it, then you would understand, ‘My neighbour does this, my neighbour rides her bike everywhere, I’m going to ride my bike. I’m going to try.’ “
Latest Comments
- Boopop 2 sec ago
Bravo! I'd love to know what modifications were made to it. I would hope going up huge hills means he had lower gear than standard.
- mitsky 3 min 16 sec ago
"A man who deliberately knocked a Metropolitan Police officer off his motorcycle, leaving him with life-changing injuries, has been jailed for five...
- mdavidford 8 min 3 sec ago
We might equally pertinently ask: does this stuff come with less rubbish/trash/litter/landfill/etc. than an equivalent product that comes in...
- brooksby 22 min 25 sec ago
I think that they are 'access' or 'deliveries only'. Seems weird that these people appear to think that cyclists are a death-causing menace...
- Paul J 44 min 39 sec ago
Where do you get those numbers? I have their Power Shield Pro and Power Shield RPM pages open here now and I read this, C&Ping from the pages...
- Beatnik69 1 hour 32 min ago
I have a funny feeling that Translink don't allow bikes on trains before 9am, which is ridiculous. They ned to bring back the guard van that used...
- Daveyraveygravey 1 hour 40 min ago
+1 for my Proviz jacket. It's a proper one although I think I got it half price for £50....
- eburtthebike 2 hours 5 min ago
Much better than what I was trying to concoct.
- chrisonabike 2 hours 22 min ago
Was it you that stole my bike?...
- brooksby 3 hours 4 min ago
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14 comments
Did someone pay her to write this? I'd rather they'd done something worthwhile and dropped a few bob in a charity box.
One day she'll wake up and notice the sun rises.
And what about all those taking part in WNBR? Are they Ferrari, Volkswagen, commuter or racer. And do they hang out? If so, where?
Has the sum total of human knowledge been added to? I feel not
Jean-Paul Sartre dealt with this pretty well back in 1940 something with "Being and Nothingness" , more recently Rapha with their "club" subscription model of retailing have also successfully tackled this issue - the undergrad' might need to research a bit more and read Flann O'Brien or go straight to unicorn
There is nothing new under the sun.
“The gross and net result of it is that people who spent most of their natural lives riding iron bicycles over the rocky roadsteads of this parish get their personalities mixed up with the personalities of their bicycle as a result of the interchanging of the atoms of each of them and you would be surprised at the number of people in these parts who are nearly half people and half bicycles...when a man lets things go so far that he is more than half a bicycle, you will not see him so much because he spends a lot of his time leaning with one elbow on walls or standing propped by one foot at kerbstones.”
― Flann O'Brien, The Third Policeman
I reckon I've got a different identity for each bike I ride MTB=Enduro, commuter=normal clothes, Road=Rapha wanker, Cross bike=unfit chancer. I'll happily mix between bike people. Except unicyclists, they're a bunch of splitters!
Identity is more to do with what you wear on your bike than the actual bike itself.
Who doesn't mind getting their bike stolen?
Damon Albarn
Wait till I get that Raleigh Burner, it'll be totally fucking Mexico.
I think my bikes make a clear statement: Wannabe
What a load of cobblers. I've got a road bike, a single speed, a MTB and a BMX in the garage. The only one I never commute on is the BMX. All the rest are also used for their respective purposes as well. I'd guess that even if people actually race at amateur level they probably still commute on a bike if possible. Hipsters are probably the insular culture as the bike is about image most of the time.
Please do. Then you would be Nathan Barley.
Peace and fucking.
I commute on my BMX sometimes and it's great for riding to the station as it's short and I can take it on the train a lot more easily than I can the MTB or the road bike. Many of the BMX racers I know commute on their 20s as well. You just need a saddle with a long seatpost. My 20 is particularly good when there's snow on the ground as it happens. The wide bars make it preferable to my MTB for those conditions. My commute's only a few miles though. I do the commute on my 24 as well, but less often even though its gearing is a bit higher.
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The wide bars make it preferable to my MTB for those conditions.
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?? Aren't we all riding >74cm wide bars on our MTBs now? How wide are your BMX bars?
Now I know why my son is taking an interest in cycling...