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Trek Antelope MTB

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Cycling documentary about Graeme Obree, a Scottish cyclist who revolutionized and challenged the sport of cycling. It highlights the dislike for change in the cycling industry, and could give me an insight into whether bikes are truly as efficient as we are told.

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Ritchey MTB

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Muddy Fox MTB

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2x low gear mountain bike commuter - vintage mtb restoration / build

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A NYC based Youtuber who documents the world of bikes via his camera. He is known mainly for his POV style videos which provide a view through the eyes of a rider.

His videos showcase many riders from different backgrounds and disciplines, and the culture of cycling in different countries.

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"terry barentsen" hotline "fixed gear" "track bike" "road bike" "mountain bike" "gravel bike" cycling "urban cycling"

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a place where my love for cycling and filmmaking have come together

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Autumn Gravel Cycling in Minnewaska State Park (5K)

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The history of the mountain bike is a fascinating tale, born out of innovation, adventure, and a love for off-road cycling. This could help me understand when the seriousness of cycling came to be.

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The Birth and Evolution of the Mountain Bike

The history of the mountain bike is a fascinating tale, born out of innovation, adventure, and a love for off-road cycling.

Origins: Early 20th Century

The origins of the mountain bike stretch back to the early 20th century when riders began modifying their own bikes to tackle the demands of off-road cycling. These early iterations, however, were far removed from the purpose-built machines we know today.

Cyclists of the era, using what were essentially heavy-duty road bicycles, swapped in wider tires and used different handlebars to better negotiate the rocky trails and forest paths.

The birth of cyclo-cross in Europe during the 1900s, a form of off-road racing that still exists today, hints at the burgeoning desire to push bikes beyond tarmac and into wilder terrain.

Birth of the Mountain Bike: 1970s

The 1970s marked a significant turning point in the history of mountain biking.

In Marin County, a group of passionate, innovative cyclists started experimenting with modifying heavy old paperboy bikes to handle off-road conditions.

The mountainous landscape of the area was perfect for these pioneers to test and refine their creations.

These pioneers, including names like Gary Fisher, Joe Breeze, and Tom Ritchey, began modifying their bikes, affectionately known as " clunkers" or " ballooners ", with better brakes and gears.

Their custom bikes were designed specifically for the downhill rides on Mount Tamalpais.

They used strong frames from older balloon-tire bicycles, outfitting them with more robust brakes, wide, knobby tires, and flat motorcycle handlebars.

These early bikes, formed the prototype for today's mountain bikes.

Joe Breeze is credited with creating the first purpose-built mountain bike in 1977.

Breezer #1, as it was called, was a breakthrough and marked the beginning of the development and refinement process of these early mountain bikes.

The first ever mountain bike race, the Repack Downhill, was also held in Marin County in 1976.

It was called 'Repack' because the descent was so steep and fast that the coaster brakes would become red hot from the friction, often causing the grease to vaporize, necessitating a repacking of the brake hub with grease.

The Industry Catches On: 1980s

The humble clunker began to evolve into a more refined, commercially viable product in the 1980s.

In 1981, Specialized launched the Stumpjumper, the first mass-produced mountain bike.

This commercial release marked a critical step in legitimizing mountain biking as more than just a fringe hobby, as it rapidly became one of the fastest-growing segments of the bicycle market.

Companies such as Trek and Giant quickly caught onto this trend, launching their own models to cater to the growing community of off-road enthusiasts.

Technological Advances: 1990s - 2000s

As the 1990s rolled around, the mountain bike started seeing significant technological advancements. Front suspension systems were introduced, with companies like RockShox leading the charge.

This innovation was soon followed by full suspension models, which greatly increased the capability and comfort of mountain bikes on more challenging terrain.

Mountain biking's recognition as an official sport in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics marked another significant milestone. The discipline's inclusion in such a high-profile event further enhanced its status and accessibility.

As the new millennium arrived, mountain biking began to branch into specialized sub-disciplines, including cross-country (XC), downhill (DH), and freeride (FR).

Each type of mountain biking required specific designs and technologies, leading to bikes with distinctive geometries, suspension travel, and gear ratios.

The Present and Beyond: 2010s and Onwards

The advent of electric-assist mountain bikes (e-MTBs) has been one of the most significant developments in recent years, broadening the sport's appeal to those who might have found the physical demands of traditional mountain biking too daunting.

Materials such as carbon fiber have increasingly been used in mountain bike construction, reducing weight while increasing strength and stiffness.

Advances in drivetrain technology, particularly the widespread adoption of 1x systems, have simplified gear shifting and reduced maintenance.

The modern mountain bike is a testament to over a century of innovation and the relentless pursuit of performance.

As technology continues to evolve, it's clear that the future holds even more exciting developments for this dynamic sport.

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BMX Bike Riding for Beginners: Mastering the Basics and Thriving on Two Wheels

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Discover the thrill of BMX bike riding as a beginner. Learn essential techniques, master the basic skills, and explore the world of tricks and stunts. Get expert tips and guidance to kickstart your BMX journey and become a confident rider.

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First official Mountain Bike. The Breezer 1 hand built by Joe Breeze in 1977. The ideology behind this bike can help me understand the origins of mountain biking and the motives behind its creation.

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This video from GenoSack shows the more casual and social side of bike culture.

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In this video ex-competitive cyclist Ronnie Romance talks about how bikes offer something that other forms of transport can't, and his ideology. This could help me understand what makes bikes such a perfect machine for humans.

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A Taste of Freedom - Ronnie Romance aka UltraRomance

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Moriyama Daido is a Japanese photographer often referred to as the 'Ninja Photographer' because of his unique style. I looked into Daido as I felt his style of photographing a subject could provide inspiration for how I could photograph cyclists on the move.

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"Unmissable" (The Guardian) - the first UK retrospective of one of the world's most innovative and influential artists and street photographers.

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"Unmissable" (The Guardian) - the first UK retrospective of one of the world's most innovative and influential artists and street photographers.

This event is part of our Past Programme

Final weekend!

We're expecting it to be really busy - especially 2-4pm. We recommend visiting earlier or booking in advance to avoid disappointment.

For more than sixty years, Daido Moriyama (森山 大道 b. 1938) has used his camera to interrogate and revolutionise the way we look at the world with his dense, grainy images. Even today, Moriyama's pioneering artistic spirit and visual intensity remain groundbreaking.

The exhibition traces the path of a photographer who transformed the way we see photography and questioned the very nature of photography itself.

Forget everything you've learned on the subject of photography for the moment, and just shoot. Take photographs - of anything and everything, whatever catches your eye. Don't pause to think.

The retrospective focuses on different moments of Moriyama's vast and productive career - beginning with his early works for Japanese magazines, interest in the American occupation, and engagement with photorealism. The show then moves through to his work from the self-reflexive period in the 1980s and 1990s, following on to his explorations of the essence of photography and of his own self, reflecting on reality, memory and cities through tireless documentation and the reinvention of his own archive.

Fittingly, Daido Moriyama: A Retrospective, brings together more than 200 works and large-scale installations, as well as many of Moriyama's rare photobooks and magazines, for the first time in the UK. One floor of the gallery has been transformed into a reading room - a dedicated space offering a rare opportunity to spend time with his legendary publications.

Immerse yourself in Moriyama's world at The Photographers' Gallery, showing until 11 February 2024. Tickets available now.

7 things to know about Moriyama

Learn more in this quick guide about Moriyama, a name synonymous with avant-garde photography.

Read more

Daido Moriyama: A Retrospective was curated by Thyago Nogueira, Instituto Moreira Salles.

Daido Moriyama: A Retrospective is the product of a three-year research period, and is one of the most comprehensive exhibitions ever mounted of this artist's work. It is organised by Instituto Moreira Salles in cooperation with the Daido Moriyama Photo Foundation.

Daido Moriyama: A Retrospective Reading Room supported by Ellen Yiwei Wang.

Daido Moriyama: A Retrospective is supported by

Own a print

Prints from this exhibition are available from our Print Sales, prices from £1,250 + VAT. All profits from Print Sales support the public exhibitions programme at The Photographers' Gallery.

Enquire about availability now

Become a member

Members enjoy free, unlimited access to all our exhibitions, whilst supporting our educational programmes. Your support helps to provide a home for the next generation of photographers.

Find out about membership options

Shop the exhibition

An incredible selection of books, magazines and exhibition posters are available to shop online or in store now, including signed copies. The impressive exhibition volume features more than 190 chronologically arranged images that reveal Moriyama's constantly evolving career, which reframes his legacy, and is certain to become the definitive publication on Moriyama's work.

Buy now

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Learn about Daido Moriyama's unique photographic style in this quick guide

Exhibition

Don't miss out - closes Sunday 2 June! Discover the key moments in the unparalleled career of London-born photographer Bert Hardy (1913-1995, UK) at The Photographers' Gallery

Our Bookshop is one of London's best and most treasured independent centres for photography book lovers.

Our specialist space to discover photographers, buy prints and build collections.

Learn about Daido Moriyama's unique photographic style in this quick guide

Exhibition

Don't miss out - closes Sunday 2 June! Discover the key moments in the unparalleled career of London-born photographer Bert Hardy (1913-1995, UK) at The Photographers' Gallery

Our Bookshop is one of London's best and most treasured independent centres for photography book lovers.

Our specialist space to discover photographers, buy prints and build collections.

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From Jon Nicholls, Thomas Tallis School

Throughout the modern era, photography has been enlisted to classify the world and its people. Driven by a belief in the scientific objectivity of photographic evidence, the logics utilized to classify photographs-in groups and categories or sequences of identically organized images-also shape our visual consciousness. In the twenty-first-century, new digital technologies and globalization have radically transformed the applications of photography, making the reconsideration of photographic information systems ever more urgent.
-- from The Order of Things, an exhibition at the Walther Collection, 2015

This lesson or short series of lessons is designed to encourage students to consider one particular way in which photography has been employed. The camera's ability to make an accurate record of particular visual phenomena has meant that artists and photographers, seeking to make a systematic document of aspects of the world, have been repeatedly drawn to photography. In their hands, the camera has been used as a tool for witnessing and classifying types of subjects - people, buildings, objects etc. - gathering this evidence together in one place (often a book or exhibition) so that the viewer is able to see and assess it. This approach to photography is sometimes referred to as typological, a typology being a study or interpretation of types of things.

Why is the camera (and photography) particularly well-suited to the creation of typologies?

Why might artist/photographers be interested in creating typologies of things?

What issues or problems might you anticipate in setting out to create a photographic typology?

Nearly a century after August Sander's portraits of German society, the Ukrainian photographer Boris Mikhailov created a series of pictures of the amateur actors in a German theatre company in the town of Braunschweig. Shot in profile against a black background, the photographer makes reference not only to Sander's typol0gical study but also to Theodor Piderit's Principles of Mimic and Physiognomy, published in Braunschweig in 1858 and also to Hitler's interest in eugenics; Hitler became a German citizen in Braunschweig in 1932. The profile portrait also encourages the viewer to make formal comparisons between the sitters. Mikhailov's portraits and those of August Sander were exhibited together in 2012.

The husband and wife team of Bernd and Hilla Becher began photographing together in 1959. Bernd (1931-2007) and Hilla (b. 1934) Becher documented architectural forms referred to as "anonymous sculpture" for over thirty years. Their extensive series of water towers, blast furnaces, coal mine tipples, industrial facades, and other vernacular industrial architecture comprise an in-depth study of the intricate relationship between form and function. Many books on their work are in publication, each titled after the industrial structure that they document.
-- Fraenkel Gallery

Read this useful introduction to the Becher's work from American Photo magazine which describes their interest in the 'Grid' and their influence on future generations of photographers, members of the Düsseldorf School.

Simon's case studies are meditations on the touching of opposites - order and disorder, civility and barbarism, violence and aspiration - in the inscription of the human condition.

Michael Wolf's early career as a photo journalist is perhaps evident in his various studies of urban life. He documents repetitive features of the urban landscape, clearly influenced by the deadpan approach of the Dusseldorf School and the New Topographics photographers. However, Wolf's approach appears more concerned with the symbolic role played by mundane items such as his ' bastard chairs' which suggest the density of the urban environment of Hong Kong and the human ingenuity of its inhabitants. Wolf often uses a strict typological approach, as in his series ' 100 x 100', repeating the same vantage point. However, Wolf is always interested in the individuality of his human subjects and the tremendous visual variety of the interiors in which they live. He often displays his images in groups or in series to draw attention to repetitive phenomena. There is humour and poetry in these groupings. A good example of this is the beautiful and subtle "Paris Tree Shadows' series.

by using a diverse array of perspectives and visual approaches, Wolf uses his camera to reveal the human energy that flows through the contemporary city. In so doing, he establishes himself not only as a photographer of the urban structure, but of the myriad ways in which people adapt to and reconfigure this rapidly changing environment, thereby providing us with a fascinatingly intricate portrait of life in the city.

The fate of the bicycle can tell us a lot about the modern Chinese economy. As it thunders remorselessly towards ever greater industrialisation, the car has superseded the bicycle as the preferred mode of transport. In cities like Beijing, bikes have become relics of a bygone age, no longer a symbol of a unifying culture of cycling but rather emblems of social marginalisation. This moving typology by artist Zhao Xia0meng documents a radical change in people's living conditions and economic circumstances through portraits of their bikes, some of which still cling to the last remnants of a useful life. As the old Beijing saying goes, "a dog's life is better than no life."

What formal and aesthetic similarities and differences do you find in the examples of typologies above?

To what extent do photographic typologies attempt to capture "the spirit of an age"?

Susan Sontag wrote "all photographs are memento mori" (a memento mori is a type of image which reminds us of death). In what sense is this particularly true of typologies?

Create their own typological series documenting repeated forms where they live and work. For example, they might like to choose one of the following subjects:

front doors on the street where you live

cracks in the pavement

fences and walls

the colours of all the cars in the supermarket car park

telegraph poles viewed from below

TV aerials silhouetted against the sky

mugs/cups in your kitchen cupboard seen from above

your friends' hairstyles seen from behind

all the things you eat in a week

all of your clothes laid out one piece at a time on your bedroom floor ... etc.

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From Jon Nicholls , Thomas Tallis School

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Paula Scher is one of the most influential graphic designers in the world. Described as the "master conjurer of the instantly familiar," Scher straddles the line between pop culture and fine art in her work. Iconic, smart, and accessible, her images have entered into the American vernacular.

Scher has been a partner in the New York office of Pentagram since 1991. She began her career as an art director in the 1970s and early 80s, when her eclectic approach to typography became highly influential. In the mid-1990s her landmark identity for The Public Theater fused high and low into a wholly new symbology for cultural institutions, and her recent architectural collaborations have re-imagined the urban landscape as a dynamic environment of dimensional graphic design. Her graphic identities for Citibank and Tiffany & Co. have become case studies for the contemporary regeneration of American brands.

Scher has developed identity and branding systems, promotional materials, environmental graphics, packaging and publication designs for a broad range of clients that includes, among others, Bloomberg, Microsoft, Adobe, Bausch + Lomb, Coca-Cola, Shake Shack, Perry Ellis, the Walt Disney Company, the Museum of Modern Art, the Sundance Institute, the High Line, Jazz at Lincoln Center, the Metropolitan Opera, the New York City Ballet, the New York Philharmonic, the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, the New 42nd Street, the New York Botanical Garden, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Robin Hood Foundation, and the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. In 1996 Scher's widely imitated identity for The Public Theater won the coveted Beacon Award for integrated corporate design strategy. She has served on the board of directors of The Public Theater, and is a frequent design contributor to The New York Times, GQ and other publications. She served on the Public Design Commission of the City of New York from 2006 to 2015.

During the course of her career Scher has been the recipient of hundreds of industry honors and awards. In 1998 she was named to the Art Directors Club Hall of Fame, and in 2000 she received the Chrysler Award for Innovation in Design. She has served on the national board of the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) and was president of its New York Chapter from 1998 to 2000. In 2001 she was awarded the profession's highest honor, the AIGA Medal, in recognition of her distinguished achievements and contributions to the field, and in 2006 she was awarded the Type Directors Club Medal, the first woman to receive the prize. In 2012 she was honored with the Philadelphia Museum of Art's Design Collab Award, in 2013 she received the National Design Award for Communication Design, presented by the Cooper-Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, in 2019 she was named a SEGD Fellow, in 2021 she was honored with the title Royal Designer for Industry (RDI), and in 2022 she received the D&AD Special President's Award. Scher has been a member of the Alliance Graphique Internationale (AGI) since 1993 and served as its president from 2009 to 2012.

Her work has been exhibited all over the world and is represented in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York, the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Denver Art Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, the Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, and the Bibliothèque nationale de France and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.

Scher holds a BFA from the Tyler School of Art and honorary doctorates from the Corcoran College of Art and Design, the Maryland Institute College of Art, Moore College of Art and Design, and Columbus College of Art and Design. Her teaching career includes over two decades at the School of Visual Arts, along with positions at the Cooper Union, Yale University and the Tyler School of Art. She is the author of Make It Bigger (2002), MAPS (2011) and 25 Years at the Public: A Love Story (2020), all published by Princeton Architectural Press, and the subject of Paula Scher: Works (2017), edited by Tony Brook and Adrian Shaughnessy and published by Unit Editions. Scher is featured in "Abstract: The Art of Design," the Netflix documentary series about leading figures in design and architecture.

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Paula Scher is one of the most influential graphic designers in the world. Described as the "master conjurer of the instantly familiar," Scher straddles the lin...

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Old maps of Wandsworth on Old Maps Online. Discover the past of Wandsworth on historical maps.

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1. Does cycling affect mental wellbeing?

2. What areas of the body does cycling target?

3. How does the culture of cycling differ around the world?

4. Is the rise of E-bikes a positive or negative thing for the world of bicycles?

5. What are the subsections of the cycling community?

6. How transferable is cycling fitness?

7. Why are bike shops struggling in London?

8. Are rental E-bikes (e.g. Lime bikes) bad for the industry?

9. What is so amazing about cycling in the Netherlands?

10. How is Paris becoming more bike friendly?

11. Why is there such a hatred of cyclists in the UK?

12. Is road cycling too serious?

13. Why are gravel bikes so popular?

14. Why are bikes so expensive?

15. Are bicycles in their most efficient form?

16. Is cycling infrastructure necessary?

17. How do the health benefits of cycling compare to those of other sports?

18. Why do you never forget how to ride a bike?

19. Why is it so fun?

20. Is it dangerous?

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This is an archive of retro MTB magazines and catalogues. This could be useful in helping me understand the progression of the sport.

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Archive of articles, reviews and covers from all the large magazines

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1. Dulwich Velodrome

2. Brixton Cycles

3. Babyldn Bikes

4. London transport museum

5. Hammersmith Bridge

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Throughout this year my weakest assessment criteria has consistently been either investigation or experimentation, particularly the bridge between the two. Through FMP I most want to try and develop my experimentation, hopefully being able to more effectively use it as a tool for exploration of my topic, using it as a method of investigation.

For example, in Family Fortunes, I was made aware that, despite having done many tests, there were huge jumps between them where I didn’t explain or make clear my motives and decisions. I need to improve at showing my references and experimenting as a result of them. I’d also like to move away from simple tests with generic materials, as in FMP I will have a lot more time to focus on my ideas and outcomes. I also think allowing my experimentation to lead my project as opposed to my ideas of what I want to finish with, is something that is really hard to consciously overcome, but that would be beneficial to master. In doing this I think I would instantly have a much broader range of ideas, work and possibilities, and would absolutely finish FMP with something far more sophisticated than if I planned my whole process.

I can feel how much I’ve improved over the course of the last few months, but I feel like I haven’t had a chance to hone the skills I’ve learnt. I want to use FMP to stretch out my abilities and be considerate with everything I do, especially with my experimentation.

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Since the start of Right to Roam my subject matter hasn’t changed much. I started off looking into vintage bikes and the history of mountain biking. It didn’t go far after the R2R review but I had a couple of ideas.

I wanted to make a typology of bikes/cyclists, but I also wanted to explore hovercrafts. I did a brief dive into the history of hovercrafts but decided it wasn’t for me. I found that much too engineering based and also didn’t have that much depth beyond its brief history. I was lost for ideas, but then during Family Fortunes, I became interested in maps and cartography, and decided that I could explore that for my FMP. However, I realised that despite the world of maps being so huge, I might run out of ideas, and/or passion, so as a result, I went back to looking at bikes, only this time I was looking at the subject as a whole. I was happy with how broad of a subject area it is, and now felt confident that I couldn’t possibly run out of ideas, but it was pointed out in my FMP presentation that it was much too broad of a subject to cover, and that I needed to find an area to question and focus on. I am now focusing on the culture of bikes and cycling, specifically through different disciplines and geographical areas.

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This book is a collection of iconic bike designs from the last century. I think it could help me understand the world of manufacturer competition.

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This is a brief explanation of the culture of cycling in different countries across the world. This will help me to compare the UK and its attitudes to the rest of the world.

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The Netherlands is renowned for its cycling culture. With a vast network of bike lanes, dedicated infrastructure, and bike-friendly cities, it's no wonder that cycling is deeply ingrained in Dutch society. If you've ever been lucky enough to visit the Netherlands, you know that cycling is the preferred mode of transportation for commuting, running errands, and leisure activities for many people.

The country's extensive cycling infrastructure includes well-maintained bike paths, bicycle parking facilities, and traffic regulations that prioritise cyclists' safety. All this great infrastructure has led to high levels of cycling participation among all ages, and the country is a shining example of what is possible.

Denmark

Denmark is another country celebrated for its cycle-friendly cities, with Copenhagen being a prime example. Cycling is embraced as a part of everyday life, with a significant portion of the population relying on bicycles for their daily commute.

When designing urban areas, Danish cities plan with bikes in mind. They include segregated cycle lanes, traffic signals for bikes, and creative bike infrastructure including bike bridges and ramps. This integration of cycling into urban planning has resulted in safe cycle usage as well as cycling being a convenient choice.

Japan

In Japan, cycling holds a unique cultural significance. From the iconic "mamachari" bicycles used for everything from short trips and shopping to long-distance touring on scenic routes, cycling is deeply intertwined with Japanese lifestyle and traditions.

Cycling is also embraced as a recreational activity in Japan. Long-distance cycling trips are known as 'Randonnée' in Japan (also known as audaxes elsewhere in the world), and they've gained in popularity among those who like a challenge. With their dedicated cycling paths, local cycle clubs and large-scale cycling events, enthusiasts from all walks of life are part of cycle culture in Japan. It helps that the country's picturesque landscapes and cultural heritage sites make Japan an ideal destination for cycle tours.

China

The perception of cycling in China has changed as rapidly as China itself. Bicycles have historically been a symbol of transformation. The famous Flying Pigeon and Phoenix bicycles became iconic modes of transportation during the 1970s, representing a sense of freedom and progress. They were owned with pride and were seen as a status symbol.

However as time went on, incomes rose, technology advanced and car culture rapidly increased; bike usage dramatically declined and bikes were even seen as a danger in some areas. But in the past decade, China is once again getting onboard with the bike, encouraging bike-share programmes, and improving cycle infrastructure.

Now hipster bike culture has begun to catch on, with informal 'alley cat' style races cropping up all over China. They're often organised by bike messengers, as they involve checkpoint-style races that are similar to the way a bike messenger might go about their job, collecting the next checkpoint once they reach their initially assigned checkpoint.

China's cycling culture continues to evolve, and with a bigger focus on sustainable infrastructure in recent years, Chinese cycling could be here to stay.

Colombia

Cycling holds a special place in Colombian culture, with the country producing world-class professional cyclists such as Egan Bernal and Rigoberto Urán. Cycling is not just a means of transport in Colombian culture, but is a highly regarded sport, with its teams gaining international recognition by taking part in events such as the Giro d'Italia and the Tour de France.

In addition to being popular as a sport, the Colombian government have actively promoted cycling as part of the solution to improve air quality and reduce traffic congestion. Initiatives such as Ciclovía, where major roads are closed to vehicles, allow cyclists and pedestrians to enjoy the streets. These have been viewed positively and are aiding cycling as an embedded piece of Colombian culture.

India

India is a large country, and cycling can hold different meanings across the different regions. In more rural areas, bikes are an important mode of transport, providing residents with access to education, employment and an easier way to run errands.

In the cities of India, cycling is gaining in popularity as a means of avoiding and reducing traffic as well as a way to promote a healthier lifestyle. Bike rickshaws are also a common mode of transport for short distances in many Indian cities, even as taxi-like vehicles, transporting passengers.

USA

The United States is another big place, and similarly to India it can be difficult to attribute one cycle culture to the entire country.

In some cities, such as Portland and Minneapolis, cycling is embraced as a sustainable transport option, and a popular recreational activity. Cycling clubs and events are popular, and bike lanes are widely implemented. In other areas, cycling is primarily seen as a sport or a form of exercise.

Cycling's significance varies across different cultures, but bikes are certainly a positive contribution to culture wherever they exist. They connect people, shape urban infrastructure, and reflect the values and lifestyles of communities across the world. Whether it is the Netherlands' extensive cycling infrastructure, or the avid participation as a sport in Colombia, the role of bicycles in different cultures shows the extent of the positive impact this versatile mode of transport has every day.

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Cycling Across Cultures: What Does Riding a Bike Mean to People Across the World?

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For many, cycling is a form of transport. For others, a leisure activity. It's an individual thing that can vary from person to person, but it can also be

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Cycling is so stressful in the UK, this video can help me understand why

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The history of cycling infrastructure starts from shortly after the bike boom of the 1880s when the first short stretches of dedicated bicycle infrastructure were built, through to the rise of the automobile from the mid-20th century onwards and the concomitant decline of cycling as a means of transport, to cycling's comeback from the 1970s onwards.

The California Cycle-Way, 1900

By the end of the 19th century, cycling was growing from a hobby to an established form of transport. Cyclists campaigned to improve the existing, often poorly surfaced, roads and tracks. A US group was the Good Roads Movement, another the League of American Bicyclists. The UK equivalent was the Cyclists' Touring Club (CTC), which distributed a treatise entitled Roads: Their construction and maintenance, and which, with the Bicycle Union, formed the Roads Improvement Association in October 1886. The first bicycle paths were built around this time.

In 1896 the first bikeway in the United States was created by splitting the pedestrian way of Ocean Parkway (Brooklyn). Following this successful installation numerous bicycle paths separate from the roadway were constructed by "bicycle path associations". In the United States the first was the nine-mile dedicated Cycle-Way built in 1897 to connect Pasadena, California to Los Angeles. Its right of way followed the stream bed of the Arroyo Seco and required 1,250,000 board feet (2,950 m ³) of pine to construct. The roundtrip toll was 15¢ US and it was lit with electric lights along its entire length. The route did not succeed, and the right of way later became the route for the Arroyo Seco Parkway, an automobile freeway opened in 1940.

Cycling in the Netherlands began in 1870 and by the 1920s was the most popular mode of transportation (at about 75%). The first bicycle path was built in 1885 in the city of Utrecht along the Maliebaan and in 1899 with two paved bicycle paths alongside the Breda- Tilburg cobblestone road. In Germany, concerns arose regarding conflicts between cyclists, horse traffic and pedestrians. The first cycle tracks were constructed in Bremen in 1897, and there were extensive plans for Hamburg as early as 1899.

With the advent of the motor car, conflict arose between the increasingly powerful car lobby and bicycle users. By the 1920s and 1930s the German car lobbies initiated efforts to have cyclists removed from the roads so as to improve the convenience of motoring. In the UK, the cycling lobby was attempting to remove motor vehicles from the roads by calling for the building of special " motor roads" to accommodate them. This idea was opposed by the Motorists' Union, who feared that it would lead to motorists' losing the freedom to use public roads.

In 1926 the CTC discussed an unsuccessful motion calling for cycle tracks to be built on each side of roads for "the exclusive use of cyclists", and that cyclists could be taxed, providing the revenue was used for the provision of such tracks.

The first dedicated roadside optional cycle tracks was built, as an experiment for the Ministry of Transport, beside Western Avenue between Hanger Lane and Greenford Road in 1934 opened by Leslie Hore-Belisha, the new Minister of Transport. It was thought that "the prospect of cycling in comfort as well as safety would be appreciated by most cyclists themselves". Other early cycle tracks built before the 1939 Alness report included;

However, the idea ran into trenchant opposition from cycling groups, with the CTC distributing pamphlets warning against the threat of cycle paths.

In the 1930s, Britain's Ministry of Transport built an extensive network of bike highways around the country-at least 280 miles of paved, protected infrastructure dedicated to cyclists alone. For decades, it was entirely forgotten-overgrown and overlooked-so much so that no one seems to remember that these lanes had existed at all.

Local CTC branches organised mass meetings to reject the use of cycle tracks and any suggestion that cyclists should be forced to use such devices. In 1935, a packed general meeting of the CTC adopted a motion rejecting ministerial plans for cycle path construction. The CTC were listened to, and the use of cycle tracks largely fell out of favour in the UK until the early 1970s. Since the 1930s, the established cycling lobby in the UK and Ireland has taken a critical and measured view of the utility and value of segregating cyclists. In 1947, in response to official suggestions that cyclists should use cycle-tracks, the CTC adopted a motion expressing determined opposition to cycle paths alongside public roads.

Makeshift bike racks in Slovenia (1956)

In the UK, little use of separate cycle track systems took place except in the so-called " new towns" such as Stevenage and Harlow. From the end of the 1960s in Nordic countries, the Swedish SCAFT guidelines on urban planning were highly influential and argued that non-motorised traffic must be segregated from motorised traffic wherever possible. Under the influence of these guidelines cyclists and pedestrians were treated as a homogeneous group to be catered for using similar facilities.

The guidelines strongly influenced cities such as Helsinki and Västerås to build large cycle path networks. By the late 1960s and 1970s, with the cyclists mainly gone, many German towns began removing cycle tracks so as to accommodate more car parking. Increasing traffic congestion and the 1970s oil shocks contributed to a resurgence in cycling in some countries, notably the Netherlands and Denmark. Outside of SCAFT-inspired developments in Nordic countries, the use of segregated cycle facilities was mainly confined to university towns with established populations of bicycle users. For example, in 1966, a 'Bicycle Lane' group in the City of Davis, California were elected to the City Council promising to push for bike lanes in the state of California, achieving them early in Davis.

Cycleway network in Milton Keynes. NCR routes 6 and 51 are highlighted in red. (Extracted from Openstreetmap.org
© OpenStreetMap contributors).

In 1970 in the United Kingdom, the Milton Keynes Development Corporation produced the "Master Plan for Milton Keynes". One of the important elements of this plan, and of its subsequent implementation, was the Milton Keynes redway system of segregated cycle/pedestrian paths. These are fully separated from the road system, only occasionally running alongside it. One of the aims of the redways was to make travel for pedestrians and cyclists convenient, safe, pleasant and accident free, but a study suggests that the system has only partially met these expectations.

More recent statistical data shows that the accident rate for pedestrians in Milton Keynes is just 46% of the average for England and the rate for cyclists is 87%. However, the secluded semi-rural nature of many redways that make them pleasant by day can make some people feel unsafe to use them after dark.

In the Netherlands, bicycle use declined from the post-war period up to about 1975 as automobile use increased and commuting distances increased. Bicycle traffic policy was almost completely excluded from the national government vision. Things began to turn around in about 1972 with not just the oil crisis, but also the all-time peak in traffic deaths - especially among children, the most vulnerable of road users - leading to the mass Stop de Kindermoord ('Stop the Child Murder') protest. Local and national policy began to pay more attention to cycling. Bicycle use, which had been dropping dramatically, stabilized and even rose over the next two decades. Amsterdam's traffic circulation plan of 1978 gave priority to bicycle facilities, in particular separated cycle tracks, which also meant taking some road space away from motor vehicles. The national government soon followed with subsidies for constructing bike paths alongside secondary and minor roads so that "lost ground could be made up". Another famous traffic circulation plan that gave priority to the cyclist is effective in Groningen.

In 1971 in the United States, the California state government contracted with University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) for the design of bikeways (bicycle paths, bicycle side-paths, bicycle lanes). UCLA largely copied Dutch bicycle facilities practice (primarily sidepaths) to create their bikeway designs, but the derived designs were not made public. The California Statewide Bicycle Committee (CSBC) was created in 1975, initially composed of representatives of governmental and motoring organisations. When John Forester, a cyclist representative, became a member he concluded that the real motivation for moving cyclists aside was the convenience of motorists, although the stated reason was the safety of cyclists.

When serious safety issues were identified with the proposed designs, the resulting cyclist opposition discredited the designs and prevented enactment of a mandatory side-path law. This forced the state to start over with new bikeway design standards in 1976. Those designs were subsequently adapted by the Association of American State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) to form the first edition of the AASHTO Guide for Bicycle Facilities, which is widely followed in the USA.

Center lanes on Pennsylvania Avenue looking toward the U.S. Capitol

The 1980s saw the start of experimental cycle route projects in Danish towns such as Århus, Odense and Herning, and the beginning of a large programme of cycle facilities construction as part of a "bicycle masterplan" in the Netherlands. Following the "bicycle boom" of the early 1980s, German towns began revisiting the concept.

The use of segregated cycle facilities is promoted by a large segment of the cycling community, for example lane and path cyclists, and also by many organisations associated with the environmental movement. The rise of the "Green" movement in the 1990s has been accompanied by requests for the construction of cycle networks in many countries. This has led to various high-profile cycle network projects, in Montreal, Dublin, Portland, New York, Boston, London and many other cities.

In the 2000s urban planners in several cities started to use models and simulations to estimate future bicycle paths usage and the extent to which they would improve community health outcomes.

[Author Carlton] Reid and his collaborator, urban planner John Dales, are raising money on Kickstarter to continue their research, with the goal of restoring some of the network to use. (With two weeks to go, they've doubled their original fundraising goal.) They've already heard from cities on the network with money to spend. "Some of these cities look as though they'd be excited to work with us," Reid says. "We're going to work with the willing first." Soon, it's possible that these decades-old cycling highways could once again be part of Britain's transportation network.

1. ^ "Lincoln Highway: Photos: From Wyoming Tales and Trails". www.wyomingtalesandtrails.com.

2. ^ Oakley, William (1977). Winged Wheel: The History of the First Hundred Years of the Cyclists' Touring Club. Cyclists Touring Club. ISBN 978-0-902237-10-0.[page needed ]

3. ^ Reid, Carlton (2014). Roads Were Not Built For Cars. Newcastle: Red Kite Prayer/Front Page Creations. ISBN 9780993005701. p.131.

4. Directorate General for Passenger Transport (9 March 1991). "The Dutch Bicycle Master Plan 1999" (PDF). Het Masterplan Fiets. Minister of Public Transport, Public Works and Water Management. Archived from the original (PDF) on 17 July 2011.

5. ^ Burkhard Horn (translated by Shane Foran) (9 March 1991). "The decline of a means of mass transport to the history of urban cycle planning". Bicycle Research Report 136. Allgemeiner Deutscher Fahrrad Club/European Cyclists Federation (on the Galway Cycling Campaign website). Archived from the original on 27 September 2007.

6. Robert Davis (1992). Death on the Streets: Cars and the mythology of road safety. Leading Edge Press. ISBN 0-948135-46-8.

7. ^ "The Cyclists' Touring Club: Proposal for Special Cycle Tracks Defeated". The Times. 12 April 1926.

8. "Roadside Cycle Tracks: An Experiment At Greenford". The Times. 7 June 1934.

9. ^ The Perils of the Cycle Path, Cyclists Touring Club, 1935

10. ^ Notes from history and the Hull mass cyclist demonstration of 1935 Archived 2013-12-15 at the Wayback Machine by Howard Peel, The Bike Zone, The Thinking Cyclist, accessed 23 January 2007

11. ^ Getting rid of the Cyclists: Frank Urry and the 1938 DoT Advisory Committee by Jeremy Parker, Bikereader.com (accessed 27 January 2007)

12. ^ Skinner, Pelz will recount Davis bike lanes' history - the Davis Enterprise, 11 April 2012

13. ^ Modern Milton Keynes: the master plan Archived 2012-07-28 at the Wayback Machine MK Web

14. ^ "Two decades of the Redway cycle paths in Milton Keynes" by John Franklin, Traffic Engineering + Control, July/August 1999

15. ^ Ministerie van Verkeer en Waterstaat, Fietsberaad (2009). "Cycling in the Netherlands" (PDF). Ministerie van Verkeer en Waterstaat. Archived from the original (PDF) on 14 May 2009.

16. ^ Soltani, Mahdokht. "Implementation and Results of the Traffic Circulation Plan in the City of Groningen (The Netherlands)".

17. ^ UCLA School of Engineering and Applied Science; Institute of Transportation and Traffic Engineering (April 1972). "Bikeway Planning Criteria and Guidelines" (PDF). State of California, Division of Highways. Archived from the original (PDF) on 16 February 2008.

18. ^ Maddox, Heath (2001). "Another look at Germany's bicycle boom: implications for local transportation policy & planning strategy in the USA" (PDF). World Transport Policy & Practice. 7 (3): 44-8.

19. ^ Freedman, Nicole, "Boston Bike Czar calls city 'bike-friendly,' says 'ridership has doubled in three years'", The Boston Globe, 27 January 2011

20. ^ Su, Jason G.; Winters, Meghan; Nunes, Melissa; Brauer, Michael (2010-08-01). "Designing a route planner to facilitate and promote cycling in Metro Vancouver, Canada". Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice. 44 (7): 495-505. doi:10.1016/j.tra.2010.03.015. ISSN 0965-8564.

21. ^ Zhu, Siying; Zhu, Feng (2020-10-01). "Multi-objective bike-way network design problem with space-time accessibility constraint". Transportation. 47 (5): 2479-2503. doi:10.1007/s11116-019-10025-7. ISSN 1572-9435. S2CID 254944007.

22. ^ Ospina, Juan P.; Duque, Juan C.; Botero-Fernández, Verónica; Montoya, Alejandro (2022-05-01). "The maximal covering bicycle network design problem". Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice. 159: 222-236. doi:10.1016/j.tra.2022.02.004. ISSN 0965-8564. S2CID 247905930.

23. ^ Gore, Ross; Lynch, Christopher J.; Jordan, Craig A.; Collins, Andrew; Robinson, R. Michael; Fuller, Gabrielle; Ames, Pearson; Keerthi, Prateek; Kandukuri, Yash (2022-08-24). "Estimating the Health Effects of Adding Bicycle and Pedestrian Paths at the Census Tract Level: Multiple Model Comparison". JMIR Public Health and Surveillance. 8 (8): e37379. doi:10.2196/37379. PMC . PMID 36001362.

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History of cycling infrastructure - Wikipedia

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The history of cycling infrastructure starts from shortly after the bike boom of the 1880s when the first short stretches of dedicated bicycle infrastructure were built, through to the rise of the automobile from the mid-20th century onwards and the concomitant decline of cycling as a means of transport, to cycling's comeback from the 1970s onwards.

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The National Cyclists' Union ( NCU) was an association established in the Guildhall Tavern, London, on 16 February 1878 as the Bicycle Union. Its purpose was to defend cyclists and to organise and regulate bicycle racing in Great Britain. It merged with the Tricycle Association in 1882 and was renamed the National Cyclists' Union in 1883.

The National Cyclists' Union selected teams for world championships and regulated circuit and track racing in England and Wales. It was a founder member of the International Cycling Association, forerunner of the Union Cycliste Internationale, the world governing body.

During and after the Second World War, the NCU became involved in a dispute with a rival body, the British League of Racing Cyclists, which defied the NCU's rules that massed-start races should be held on public roads only when they were closed to other traffic. The struggle between the two lasted for a decade, after which they merged to become the British Cycling Federation.

The Bicycle Union was formally established at a meeting in the Guildhall Tavern, London, on 16 February 1878, instigated by Gerard Francis Cobb (a Cambridge University music tutor, president of the Cambridge University Cycling Club, and also a member of the Cyclists' Touring Club's national council). Its purpose was to defend cyclists and to organise and regulate bicycle racing in Great Britain. In July 1878, Cobb, as its first president, led the Bicycle Union's lobbying of the Local Government Board, one of the official bodies managing British highways, and also actively campaigned for highway improvements in Cambridge.

The Bicycle Union merged with the Tricycle Association in 1882 and was renamed the National Cyclists' Union in 1883. It continued to campaign for highway improvements, successfully pursuing an 1885 legal action, with support from highway engineer Thomas Codrington, regarding the road between Birmingham and Halesowen.

In October 1886, the CTC and NCU pooled resources and formed the Roads Improvement Association. This did not present itself as a cycling organisation, instead initially focusing on production of technical literature distributed to highways boards and surveyors to promote improved construction and maintenance methods. In the early years of the 20th century, however, the RIA gradually became primarily a motoring lobby organisation, under honorary secretary William Rees Jeffreys.

The British weekly, The Bicycle, said:

"Even during the insecurity of its early years, the union found that it had substantial problems to fight. Foremost among them was a proposed amendment to the Highways Act, then before Parliament, which threatened to check very seriously the use of bicycles on the road. The cyclist of those days was considered a nuisance whether he rode a bicycle, a tricycle, or a velocipede, and was banned by municipal bodies and corporations all over the country. Here was a matter affecting the very existence of cyclists. The Bicycle Union, then barely five months old, was called upon to act promptly. By instant and energetic action a rejection of the venomous amendment was secured."

The NCU erected road signs warning cyclists of steep descents and other hazards. It was prompted by a member, J. George Jnr, who suggested them in 1878. The idea was taken up by the Earl of Albemarle, who became president of the NCU. The NCU shared signposting with the Cyclists Touring Club but after 10 years could no longer afford it and the CTC took on the whole job. The NCU also produced publications to help cyclists tour Britain.

The NCU also ran racing championships, at first open to anyone in the world. Its championships were the world's most prestigious and considered unofficial championships of the world. The NCU, which had a strict definition of an amateur, proposed to create an International Cycling Association, open to national organisations whose views of amateurism were similar to its own, and to organise world championships. The International Cycling Union was the forerunner of the Union Cycliste Internationale.

The NCU defined amateurism in English races and banned the American sprinter, Arthur Augustus Zimmerman when he appeared to be sponsored by the Raleigh Bicycle Company. It insisted the organisers of the first Bordeaux-Paris met its own ideals before allowing British riders to take part. When George Pilkington Mills won, the NCU would not recognise the victory, or consider Mills still an amateur, until he proved he had no help from the cycle factory for which he worked.

The NCU was a founder member of the world's first cycling authority, the International Cyclists Association. NCU championships, until 1937 open to riders from any country, had been considered the unofficial championships of the world. It was because the sport needed world championships independent of any national body that Henry Sturmey of the magazine The Cyclist and later founder of the Sturmey-Archer gear company proposed an International Cyclists Association in 1892. He approached other countries' cycling national associations through the NCU. The founding meeting was in London in November 1892, with representatives of the NCU and organisations in France, Germany, Holland, Italy and Canada.

Not all were the main bodies in their home country. The largest French organisation, the Union Vélocipèdique Française, sent observers but was not allowed to take part because the NCU had broken off relationships with it over the question of amateurism. Countries objected to having one vote when Britain, with England, Scotland and Ireland each voting, had three.

France was due to promote the world championships in Paris in 1900. It refused to accept the NCU's position and, after failing to have the issue discussed at an ICA meeting, convened a meeting in Paris to form the Union Cycliste Internationale. Not only would it permit just one team from the United Kingdom but the NCU and Britain's other governing bodies were excluded because they had not been at the founding meeting. It took until 1903 for Britain to be admitted.

The NCU banned all cycle racing on public roads in 1890, fearing it would again jeopardise the position of other cyclists. It compelled members to hold their races on velodromes, although the word was not known then, or on closed roads such as in parks and airfields. The only races allowed on public roads were time-trials, in which riders competed against the clock at intervals, and distance and place-to-place record attempts.

Such a ban did not operate in other countries and massed road racing continued as before. That made little difference to the British because the few international events to which they sent riders, notably the Olympic and world championship road races, had been run as individual time trials. It was as a 100-mile [162 km] time-trial, in Shropshire, that Britain organised the world championship road race in 1922. Then in 1933 the UCI decided that championships would be massed-start events. The NCU organised its 1933 world championship trial as a circuit race at Brooklands near Weybridge in Surrey. This and Donington Park in the north Midlands remained the sole venues for massed start racing on mainland Britain until 1942, along with the Snaefell Mountain Course on the neighbouring Isle of Man.

The trial led to a series of races at Brooklands, organised by the Charlotteville cycling club under Bill Mills, a professional rider who founded the weekly magazine, The Bicycle. Mills was one of few authorities to whom the NCU could turn for advice on road racing and it was he who wrote the NCU's rules, at the request of the secretary, H. N. Crowe.

The wording that Mills chose in 1933 led to the NCU's long civil war with a later rival body, the British League of Racing Cyclists. Mills wrote: "No massed start race shall be permitted, other than on an enclosed circuit, unless the course is closed under statute by the competent authority, to other vehicular traffic." Nine years later, in October 1942 and after the BLRC had broken away from the NCU because of that insistence on closed roads, Mills regretted what he had done: "In 1933 it was impossible to foresee the future... the war, the changing conditions on the road, the decline of track sport, the growing demand for massed start under real road conditions. My notes covered conditions as they existed in 1933."

At the time, said the writer and team manager Chas Messenger, "there were thousands riding in time trials and, apart from a once-in-a-while article in the cycling press, they knew little or nothing about road racing." The Brooklands races inspired some riders and one, Percy Stallard, took advantage of low wartime traffic in 1942 to organise a race on the open road from Llangollen to Wolverhampton. The NCU banned him sine die - until further notice - and he and others formed the British League of Racing Cyclists as a rival.

The NCU and the BLRC ( British League of Racing Cyclists) remained rivals for 17 years, a position which split British cycling. The BLRC's position was that racing on the road was not illegal, that it did not obstruct other travellers, and that it gave riders from England and Wales the experience to compete internationally. The NCU had entrusted its wartime administration to an emergency committee which did not have power to change major rules. The journalist John Dennis said the NCU still believed that racing on the road threatened all cycling and did not want to make any change while so many members were out of the country, fighting in the war. The two sides maintained their positions when peace came in 1945 and for many years each banned the members of the other.

The rivalry ended in 1959 when the two merged to form the British Cycling Federation.

The National Cyclists' Union leased the velodrome at Herne Hill for 21 years from 25 March 1942.

The papers of the Bicycle Union and the NCU, mainly committee minutes, are held by the Modern Records Centre at the University of Warwick Library, England.

Reid, Carlton (2014). Roads Were Not Built For Cars. Newcastle: Red Kite Prayer/Front Page Creations. ISBN 9780993005701.

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First prototype of the JBX1 "Breezer 1" mountain bike. Hand built by Joe Breeze in 1977, the JBX1 was the first bicycle frame designed specifically for mountain biking.

The "Breezer 1" was constructed with components that could withstand the repeated pounding of mountain bike riding, such as Araya brand 26" steel rims, Phil Wood hubs, Sun Tour derailleurs, and Dia-Compe brakes. The steel "riser" handlebars and Magura brand brake levers were repurposed from motorcycles and adapted to work with the "Breezer 1's" stem and brake calipers. The large size of the Magura motorcycle levers provided increased braking leverage and was advantageous when trying to ride in wet conditions with slippery steel Araya rims. Other parts, such as the Sun Tour thumb shifters were adapted from five-speed touring bikes and only came in right hand models. The left side thumb shifter, which controlled the front derailleur, was a right hand shifter that was mounted backwards.

Prior to the construction of the "Breezer 1", mountain bike racers would modify vintage cruiser bikes, nicknamed "clunkers", with coaster or drum brakes, sturdier wheels with knobby "balloon tires", and "fork braces" to keep the frames from bending under the stresses of off-road riding. Mountain bike riders in Marin County, California would race these "clunkers" down mountain trails in events called "Repack Races". The term "Repack" was coined because the hub-based brakes would inevitably overheat, lose their effectiveness, and have to be disassembled and repacked with fresh grease prior to another ride down the mountain.

Joe Breeze's "Breezer 1" design served as a benchmark for mountain bikes to build and improve upon. In 1979 Tom Ritchey of Redwood City, California, started building fat-tire mountain bikes, which were sold by two veterans of the "Repack Races", Gary Fisher and Charlie Kelly. In 1982, mountain bicycles were offered by two separate companies -- Specialized Bicycles came out with the Stumpjumper and Univega released the Alpina Pro. The following year, Gary Fisher founded his own mountain bicycle company, which sold bicycles under the brand "Gary Fisher" from 1983 to 2010.

The 1980s and 1990s saw mountain biking evolve from a niche sport to an International Cycling World Championship event in 1990. It became an Olympic event at the 1996 Atlanta games. Additionally, mountain biking became an increasingly popular amateur sport. Once only available from specialty shops, mountain bikes were suddenly being sold as recreation bikes at department stores and big box retailers.

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First prototype of the JBX1 "Breezer 1" mountain bike.

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Inside the New Plan to Make Paris ‘100% Cyclable’

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The French capital is dramatically expanding its network of segregated bike lanes and more than tripling bicycle parking spots as part of a massive new investment.

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What causes road rage between drivers and cyclists?

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What causes road rage between drivers and cyclists?

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It won't come as a surprise to hear that there is sometimes friction between cars and bicycles on the roads. It might not be quite as bad as the clips that circulate on X (formerly Twitter) make it appear, but revved engines, close passes and impatient drivers are something cyclists encounter often. But where does this tension come from?

To find out, we spoke to Peter Norton, award-winning academic and author of Fighting Traffic: The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City (MIT Press) and Autonorama: The Illusory Promise of High-Tech Driving.

Ultimately, Norton says that the friction between drivers and cyclists stems from the way our roads are designed, and the cultural conditioning to which everyone, from pedestrians to cyclists to drivers, has succumbed.

Read more: Jeremy Vine interview: I just couldn't accept that I had to risk my life to get to work

To make our roads safe and pleasant for cyclists, and to tackle the kind of road rage that every cyclist has been victim to, we need to reshape our roads, then overturn a cultural norm that has been over 100 years in the making. That might sound impossible, but the change is already underway.

Road design signals that the roads are designed for cars

Whether you're riding down a country lane or commuting through a town or city, entitled and aggressive drivers can crop up at any time. They're often angry, and sometimes express that anger by passing close to you, revving their engine or saying something rude out of the window of their car. Experienced cyclists have learnt to brush this kind of thing off, but we're always left with the same question: what happens when people get behind the wheel that makes them so short-tempered?

Norton says that this aggression is a design issue. Design our roads first and foremost for cars, and anything that disrupts the smooth flow of traffic, be that a cyclist, pedestrian or anything else, is viewed as a nuisance.

"A lot of aggressive driving isn't merely the result of a driver who is impatient or entitled, it's also the reflection of an environment that is saying not, not in words, but in design that this space is for you, the driver, this space is designed for you to meet your needs and to make it possible for you to drive. And not just drive, but drive fast without having to pay a lot of attention."

Wide carriageways; big signage; green lights: the components of a modern street seem innocent enough in isolation, but together they create a clear instruction for drivers:

"It signals that the driver can therefore pay less attention and go faster. And it's an invitation, even, to feel annoyed at having to slow down for a cyclist or a pedestrian because that cyclist's or pedestrian's use of the street appears contradictory to what the design is saying.

"The design is saying this place is for you, the motorist."

A brief history of road design

It wasn't always like this, Norton explains. At the end of the 1800s and the beginning of the new century, city streets were shared spaces, filled with pedestrians, horses, hand carts and street cars or trams. They were even places where children played. Horse-drawn carriages moved slowly, and pedestrians darted between the lumbering traffic with ease. Electrified trams in the middle of the street were used as a supplement to walking - people hopped on and off to cross cities, completing their journeys on foot.

Then, in the first few years of the 1900s, new-fangled automobiles, the playthings of the wealthy, began weaving their way through the dynamic street scene. Completely unregulated, unregistered and unchecked, It didn't take long for people to realise that these new automobiles were incredibly dangerous.

"And the conventional wisdom of that era, both in the courtroom and also in the newspapers, was that the person driving an automobile is imposing a hazard on others and therefore bears responsibility for any injuries or deaths that they may cause. It was self-evident in that era that the street is a place for all. And therefore, if you operate dangerous equipment, you bear the responsibility, not the person you hit, no matter what the other person was doing."

But in the 1910s, as cars became more popular among the richest and most powerful people in society, the law shifted in favour of the motor car.

"It did not change through some sort of evolutionary incremental transformation, but through a radical and more revolutionary transformation. And it came about because people who had an interest in automobiles as a business - in selling them, in representing the interest of drivers and insuring drivers, also taxi cab companies, auto clubs, auto dealers, manufacturers - they were quite alarmed that their future, especially in cities, was going to be a very limited one if they didn't redefine streets as places where motorists have priority. That was a very far-fetched ambition in that era. It sounded wild and crazy. Even the promoters of it called it radical."

And yet it succeeded. With the law on the side of motorists, cities began to morph to meet the needs of drivers. Streets changed. And over a period of 100 years, we ended up with a world that was quite literally made for cars. Zoning ordinances spaced out cities so walking from place to place was impossible. Suburbia separated people's homes from their workplaces and amenities. The car became an essential tool for modern life, both to gain access to the street and to move through strung-out modern cities.

Years of conditioning have made the roads the property of drivers

The shift towards car usage wasn't just physical. Car usage and ownership became a culture, and the idea that cars took precedence on the roads was buried deep into the psyche of the Western world.

"Generations have now grown up learning that the street is for automobiles to the point that you'll find pedestrians, often where they have the right of way, refusing to exercise the right of way merely because they've been so successfully trained that the street is always for the motorist," Norton says.

Read more: Anarchy, utopia, and failure: The rise and fall of the shared space movement

"So that's a deep psychological effect. It reminds me very much of something that I've heard Germans say about the Berlin wall, where after the wall went down, they would say, well, the physical wall is down, but the wall in our minds is still there. And so this is a wall in the minds of drivers; it's a wall in the mind of cyclists; in the wall in the mind of pedestrians, and undoing that is a tougher task."

This cultural consensus, paired with road design that puts cars ahead of pedestrians, has created the friction that we witness so often out on the roads. It's given drivers the belief that they are entitled to drive quickly; that they deserve to move unimpeded. With that cultural backdrop, road rage and aggression become a reasonable response to obstructions and delays.

The cause of hostility between cyclists and drivers

Given the conflict between drivers and cyclists has become so bitter in recent years, we asked Norton if there were any more specific considerations at play. Norton says it all comes back to fundamental human behaviours.

"I think you're seeing the hostility that you always see whenever human beings have to compete for the same essential resource. So if food is scarce, people fight over food. If fresh drinking water is scarce, people will fight over fresh drinking water. Well, if safe, usable street capacity is scarce, people will fight over that too.

"The original conflict involving cyclists and streets was between cyclists and pedestrians. There was incredible antagonism, especially in the 1890s, between cyclists and pedestrians, and there was constant discussion in the newspapers about reflecting real anger between these two groups, because that was where the competition for the shared space was intense. That kind of competition is what we're seeing now between cyclists and drivers, and relieving it will take making sure that cyclists have safe places to cycle.

"What we were really seeing here is the legacy of a traffic engineering judgement that the bicycle is a vehicle and that it belongs in the street, while at the same time, the street is to be designed to meet the driver's needs, not the cyclist's. This is why, for example, we expect a cyclist to come to a full stop at every stop sign, even if they have some momentum. This is very costly on a cyclist, and the reason why that cost is totally disregarded is that the stop sign decision was made by people thinking only of drivers.

"So when we have streets where the design has the cyclist in mind from the beginning, and where the space is allocated such that the cyclist has a safe place to bike, and the driver is accommodated, that conflict can subside."

Read more: Google Maps and Transport for London work together for better cycling routes

The solution

Changes like this are part of a broader restructuring of our road design approach that Norton advocates for. He says that for things to change, we need to flip the 'traffic pyramid', in exactly the opposite way that car lobbyists flipped it in the early 1900s.

"Imagine a triangle, and we put at the top of the triangle the transportation modes that we prioritise, the ones we favour most. We put at the bottom of the triangle those modes that we disfavour.

"The traffic pyramid of a century ago had walking at the top, cycling and trams came a little below that and drivers at the bottom. That pyramid was reversed. So we're talking here about revolutionary change, not evolutionary change.

Read more: New AI tool recreates streets to be bike-friendly

"I think the lesson we take from that historical example is that evolutionary change today will not be sufficient. In other words, our task is not to make the inverted traffic pyramid work, but rather to restore the traffic pyramid to its original orientation by inverting the orientation that it has now."

Of course, commercial forces prevent that from happening.

"There is a lot of money to be made selling battery electric passenger cars, and there's a lot more money to be made doing that than in, say, promoting walking, which is not a very profitable enterprise, or even promoting cycling.

"Because of that business interest, the most conspicuous, the most visible, the most prominent images of the future that we have do not show us people walking everywhere, cycling everywhere, or taking trams and buses everywhere. They show us people often alone, in a passenger car with a battery."

Will things ever change?

With so much money and power backing the car-oriented status quo, it feels like streets will always be designed as clear thoroughfares for cars, not spaces for people. However, Norton has some hope. He compares the power of the car industry to that of tobacco companies in the 1960s. The industry was determined to push on through the health scares, but the number of smokers has since dropped significantly in the decades since the science showed the health implications of smoking.

Now, as the climate crisis worsens day by day, Norton thinks the next generation will fight for a new, powerful consensus.

"We are seeing a younger generation growing up, many of whom will demand the change that many people in older generations, including mine, unfortunately, resist. So I do think we're going to see extraordinary change. I fear that it will not be enough."

Read more:

In the biggest cities in the world, more and more is being done each year to limit the freedom of cars and drivers and enhance the liberties of walkers and cyclists. From a design point of view, it just makes sense: less emissions; more efficient movement of people; quieter, more pleasant urban spaces. For us cyclists, it's better still. Road design tells us who 'should' be there. It determines the pecking order and sets expectations. The new trends for lower speed limits, more bike lanes and broader pavements or sidewalks send a message to everyone who uses the roads that the reign of the car is waning.

Drivers should not expect unrivalled access to the roads, and cannot feel justified when they feel anger and aggression. Piece by piece, we can dismantle the notion that roads are places for cars, and welcome in a transport revolution of the kind Peter Norton dreams of.

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What causes road rage between cyclists and drivers? We asked a transport historian

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We've all heard it. Cyclists are 'a nuisance' and should clear the road 'for those of us who pay road tax...' But where does this attitude come from?

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Amsterdam has had the reputation of being one of the leading cities for cycling for a long time. If you visit the city, you'll find cyclists everwhere - from mothers to police officers, young people to old people, seemingly everyone happily rides a bike.

In fact, 2017 figures revealed that 68% of traffic to and from work or school was made by bike, and cycling accounts for 36% of all traffic in Amsterdam. Here are some other facts:

Amsterdam is ranked as the most bicycle-friendly city in the World.

In 2011 and 2013, Amsterdam was ranked as the world's most bicycle-friendly city in the bi-annual Copenhagenize Index. In 2017, Amsterdam was ranked third, behind Copenhagen and Utrecht.

London was not on the latest Index and has only appeared once in 2011, placed sixteenth.

Amsterdam has 767 kilometres of bicycle paths and lanes, 513 kilometres of which are bike paths completely separated from other traffic.

Impressive figures.

What is London like, by comparison?

In contrast, London has been playing the catchup game for a long time now and, culturally, the differences between the two capital cities remain vast.

As a daily London commuter and without having done a PHD on the topic, here are my observations on the cultural differences, as well as my theory on the underlying reason(s):

London cyclists tend to ride much faster than Amsterdam cyclists. Reason - there are less segregated cycle lanes, meaning cyclists are often sharing the road with cars, forming a culture where the bicycle is treated as another road vehicle

In London, it seems a larger proportion of cyclists are enthusiasts (sometimes known as the 'lycra clan'), i.e. they treat cycling as a sporting hobby. Reason - because the infrastructure is less developed, it tends to attract those who are not afraid to ride on the open roads, and those tend to be people who have taken up road cycling as a hobby and have built confidence through joining cycling clubs, etc.

London cyclists seem to use fancier, more expensive bikes than their Amsterdam counterparts. Reason - this can be partly explained by the above 2 reasons, as enthusiasts and road users are more likely to use dedicated road bikes. Another reason is that the Dutch tend to regard the bicycle as the extension of their two legs, simply as a means of getting from A to B. Whereas in London, the bicycle is seen as more than a transportation tool. It is also a fitness device, a piece of tech and for some their 'pride and joy'.

Londoners appear to (I don't have the facts to back this up) cycle longer distances than their Dutch counterparts. Reason - astronomical property prices and lack of amenities (schools, hospitals, local shops) in the centre of the city has driven typical residents to at least zone 2, with a substantial number of people commuting into the city from zones 3 and 4.

London's best cycling infrastructure appears to be primarily used for city commuting, rather than for the whole community in an inclusive manner. It is not uncommon to see cycling lane traffic jams between 8-9am and 5-6pm, only to seem those same lanes completely empty in other times of the day. Reason - cycling infrastructure projects are only funded if there is a 'business case', not as part of an overall strategy to increase access to cycling for the community generally.

I have admit I'm a product of the culture myself. I love cycling both as a form of commute and as a hobby, and I've built my nerves to ride on open roads after years of fighting my fears. I've grown accustomed to cycling specific gear and I treat my road bike like a close friend.

Whilst not all bad, the culture that has been built up in London has led to a number of side effects. Cycling in London can be a more stressful experience as one needs to constantly negotiate larger vehicles, some of whom can get angry and impatient at having to share roads with slower vehicles.

The ad-hoc infrastructure has led to many cyclists mixing up their attitude between seeing themselves as a road vehicle, and as an user of special cycling infrastructure. This can lead to instances of running red lights, for example, which annoy both drivers and cyclists alike.

The use of expensive bikes on London's roads has led to problems with crime, with professional thieves who focus their times on stealing bikes and reselling them, often overseas. One never feels safe with their bike locked away in London, no matter how heavy duty the locks are.

However, probably the biggest side effect is that the combination of the above factors has put off more people to get into cycling, either because they are afraid (because they think it's dangerous), or they don't think they fit into the mould of a typical London cyclist, whatever that means.

Unfortunately, the outlook for cycling in London is best described as uncertain. Sadiq Khan, London's Mayor, has underspent on cycling initiatives by £142 million, and plans to improve London's cycling infrastructure are hampered by unrealistic ideas such as Lord Foster's SkyCycle dream.

So what could change this? Or are to to accept this for what it is?

Amsterdam's cycling culture is shaped by an overall strategy with commitment to invest

If anything can be learnt from Amsterdam, it is that they had an overall city wide strategy to increase ridership, to be inclusive, and to drive down the number of vehicles in the city. All of this takes political will and a visionary (or a few) to drive through.

It built a comprehensive network of infrastructure geared towards cycling, across the city, in an egalitarian manner. This inclusive network of infrastructure has made cycling the most logical form of transportation in Amsterdam for anybody, including children, the elderly, even pregnant mothers.

Over time, the cycling culture has become so ingrained in Dutch culture that they often don't wear helmets or cycling lycra. Normal people cycle every day in every-day clothing.

How can London's cycling culture catch up?

As we have shown, cycling in London has progressed, there is still a long way to go to compete with the most cycle-friendly cities in the world.

It is clear that additional investment in high-quality cycling infrastructure is needed to reverse the culture and to create a safe, inclusive cycling network that will encourage cyclists of all ages and abilities to get on a bike, plus an emphasis on encouraging more people to take up cycling as a form of transport.

That is what we are all fighting for in London and I hope one day we will get there.

Cover photo credit: FaceMePls

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Differences between Amsterdam and London cycling culture

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Amsterdam has had the reputation of being one of the leading cities for cycling for a long time. If you visit the city, you'll find cyclists everwhere - from mothers to police officers, young people to old people, seemingly everyone happily rides a bike.Credit: jaimilee.bealeIn fact, 2017 figures revealed that 68% of traffic to and from work or school was made by bike, and cycling accounts for 36% of all traffic in Amsterdam.

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Election cycle – and not talking about cycling

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How do you get politicians to care about cycling? Head of campaigns Duncan Dollimore outlines what Cycling UK’s been doing at the party conferences to convince politicians that more people walking and cycling delivers on their economic, environmental, public health and other objectives – talking about cycling without talking about cycling

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When Alice Clews-Smith and her partner, Kitty, moved to London, they didn't see many options for pursuing their shared passion for cycling.

"I think it's fair to say that the industry and the cycling scene were very male dominated," she said. "There was a lack of space for women, trans-femme, non-binary people. We wanted a space where these people could feel welcomed and included. And because not everything is about going fast in Lycra."

So was born the Steezy Collective, which brings together cyclists across the UK. Not that going fast is off the table. The collective noticed that there were no women in the Fastest Known Times list for the Lakeland 200 route - 200km of mountain bike trails through the Lake District - so they set about correcting that, and now the list includes nine women riders, with their efforts captured on film.

The existence of the Steezy Collective and others such as Sisters in the Wild, the Lakes Gravel Gang, the New Forest Off Road Club and 6am Cycling is part of a new wave of enthusiasts fuelled by the lockdown bicycle boom. Riders are now much more diverse than the cliched and not entirely accurate stereotype of middle-aged men in Lycra.

With miles of cycle paths opening up in cities across the UK, people reacted during the pandemic lockdowns by buying bikes in record numbers, with latecomers facing months-long waits. By March 2021, cycle traffic in England was 64% higher than in December 2013.

Now that has all changed. Last week, Wiggle Chain Reaction Cycles, one of the UK's largest online cycle retailers, went into administration while Islabikes, which transformed the design of children's bikes to make them lighter and easier to handle, said that it would stop manufacturing. The announcements came after three major UK distributors went bust, along with German company Signa Sports United, and the Italian firm Bianchi announced redundancies, Cycling Weekly reported.

The whole industry generates about £7.5bn of added value to the UK economy and employs about 64,000 people

Phillip Darnton, Bicycle Association

So what went wrong?

"We could see it before anyone else," said Martin Shepherd at Reynolds Technology in Birmingham, which for the past 125 years has made steel tubes used to create bicycle frames.

"During the pandemic, you couldn't ship bikes fast enough," he said. "Everybody's lead time for orders [mostly to Taiwanese factories] started to go up nine months in advance, 12 months in advance.

"Now we've come out of the other side of it, there's just vast amounts of inventory because all those people who were having to order 500 bikes 18 months in advance were suddenly swamped with stock."

Customers, on the other hand, had been hit hard in their bank accounts. Sales have dipped, leaving companies with stock that's proving hard to shift - something analyst Velco described as an economic " whiplash effect ", where small changes are magnified down the supply chain. Some bikes can now be bought at steep discounts since 2024 models will be arriving in a matter of weeks.

Shepherd said high interest rates, as well as post-Brexit trade barriers, were also playing their part. UK firms have specialised in mid- and high-end bikes, and sales to Europe had been substantial, but they have been hit by customs delays and extra charges. Now is an excellent time to buy a bike, but those bargains come with a price tag for the sector. If the market is flooded with more cheap stock, it could drive more firms out of business.

UK bikes shops have record stocks just at the point when potential customers are facing a cost of living crunch. Photograph: David Pearson/Alamy

"In the long term, it could result in less choice for consumers because the more high street shops that shut, the less people there are to fix a bicycle or advise them," said Jonathan Harrison, director of the Association of Cycle Traders, which represents retailers and repairers.

There have already been "quite a lot" of closures, he said, and there are now about 2,700 bike shops in the UK and another 1,100 workshops, hire centres and bike cafes.

"The likes of Wiggle closing will have impacts on other businesses, too, because a lot of distributors have been over-reliant on them as a sales channel," Harrison said. "So we will see further repercussions happen, particularly in the supply chain. But I think the market will bounce back. We still think there is room for growth in the number of people cycling."

There is another headwind for cyclists blowing from Westminster. Inspired by a narrow victory in the Uxbridge byelection in July, Rishi Sunak declared the end of an alleged "war on drivers".

Whether that amounts, as some fear, to a declaration of a new war on pedestrians and cyclists remains to be seen - the prime minister's plan for drivers includes a clampdown on 20mph speed limits, bus lanes and low-traffic neighbourhoods (LTNs), having slashed funds for cycle lanes and pavements in March.

There used to be cross-party consensus on active travel, but there's been a substantial change over the last 18 months against anything perceived to be green

Duncan Dollimore, Cycling UK

Last Friday, the Commons' public accounts committee said there had been "disappointingly slow" progress on increasing active travel. The Department for Transport has been ordered to conduct an LTN review and has canvassed views from local authorities, which campaigners say could lead to reopening rat runs closed years ago by tarmacking over cul-de-sacs and ripping out bollards and other so-called modal filters.

"During Covid we saw a massive increase in levels of cycling," said Duncan Dollimore, head of campaigns at Cycling UK. "Since then, the numbers have dropped substantially and we've lost all the benefits. And part of the reason is government policy.

"There used to be a cross-party consensus on active travel, but there's been a very substantial change in tone over the last 18 months. The whole narrative from the government has been very much against anything that's perceived to be green, and it's quite toxic."

He said that a media campaign with "a certain degree of vilification of people cycling has an effect on people and then puts people off. The narrative against cycling isn't helping these local industries."

Phillip Darnton, the chair of the Bicycle Association, which represents larger manufacturers and retailers, said they have been trying to persuade ministers that the cycling industry presents an opportunity to boost economic growth.

"The whole industry is surprisingly valuable," he said. "It's probably generating about £7.5bn of added value to the UK economy and, if you include livelihoods, employs about 64,000 people."

Islabikes, which transformed children's bikes to make them lighter and easier to handle, recently said it would cease manufacturing. Photograph: James Sturcke/Alamy

While it is often tempting to look enviously at the Netherlands and Denmark, which have been investing in cycling and cycle lanes since the 1973 oil crisis, Darnton pointed to Germany as inspiration. "In Germany last year they sold about 2.2m electric bikes and were disappointed they couldn't satisfy the last 100,000 orders," he said. "In the UK, we struggled to sell 150,000."

France has had huge growth in ebike sales, he added, because the government had offered some modest subsidies. "The French say it's not about how many euros or pounds but the very fact that the government says: 'This is the strategy - we want to urge you not to use a car for short urban trips' and makes it attractive for businesses to make deliveries in the last mile by cargo bike."

Cargo bikes - larger, usually electric, bikes with a separate carrier - are one remaining bright spot, with people adopting them in growing numbers.

The trend is particularly noticeable in Cambridge, where it was instrumental in shielding Outspoken Cycles, which sells and services bikes in the city, from the worst of the lockdown effects, according to the shop's general manager, Robert Hampton.

"We haven't had the overstock issue for cargo bikes," he said. "We're now back to a lead time of about four weeks. It's been steady growth: 20% more this year than last year, and 20% more last year than the year before. It's much more of a steady increase of people looking more to move out of using a car for everyday journeys."

Meanwhile, there are still plenty of riders who take the sport seriously, whether that's taking one of the dozens of routes through the flat Cambridge Fens or the hills of the Yorkshire Dales. While appetites for a £300 commuter bike have waned, people who want to add another £10,000 bike to their collection are still doing so, according to Shepherd.

At 6am Cycling, there is room for both types of rider. The club was started by Tom Glendining and Lesley Sharpe in 2015 and really took off when they began their Fri-Up rides - a dawn trip through Epping Forest followed by a coffee.

"It just started through a group of us going out really early on a Friday morning," Glendining said. "And more people started joining.

"Everything's shifted. Loads of girls getting into it now, which is fantastic. There's Brothers on Bikes trying to get Muslim dudes out on bikes - they've started joining the fry-up rides as well. It's not all about going fast - although we've got them too. There's guys who ride with 6am who are incredibly strong riders and have done national time trials and all that. They're all really lovely people. The main thing is you've got to be nice."

This article was amended on 6 November 2023 to correct a reference to the 6am Cycling club's Fri-Up rides, which end with a coffee. An earlier version mistakenly referred to them as "Fri-Day" rides and said they were followed by "a fry-up".

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Brexit, lack of cash, politics: has the UK cycling revolution run out of road?

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Bike sales boomed during the pandemic, but now cycle shops are going bust, sales of ebikes are sluggish and there's a downturn in 'active travel'

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With rare exceptions for the Smart Car, the tandem bike and whatever those contraptions are in the Dr. Seuss books, the human evolutionary process basically stopped when mankind progressed from two legs to two wheels. If you need proof of the superiority of the cycle, look no further than film, where bikes appear in some of the coolest and most nostalgic moments in modern cinema, thanks to great riders like Pee Wee Herman, the Fab Four and a little-known alien who really, really just wanted to make a house call already.

In honor of the Bicycle Film Festival, which makes its way to Denver April 17-19, we pulled together this list of the best scenes ever to highlight the power of the bicycle. Don't try some of these moves at home.

If this scene played out in real life today, in a world where teens drive SUVs and do their bullying on cyberspace, it would be not only ridiculous but a total failure. But we've also never played a magical board game that sent our entire local zoo after us, so I guess we're even. Notably, it is only after these little jerks steal Alan's bicycle that he notices the drum beats, starts a game of Jumanji and loses thirty years of his life only to emerge a hairy beast man (Robin Williams). So the moral of this story is ... beats us. 15. The Muppets It wasn't until we rewatched this clip that we realized how much Miss Piggy reminds us of a sassier, less talented Barbra Streisand. That said, the real focus in this scene should be on the pure mechanics of making two massively oversized puppets ride matching and adorable bicycles (Piggy's even has a basket) while crooning in earnest about their longtime love - with no visible strings attached. No matter how improbable the relationship is (Kermit fits in said basket), and no matter what those grumpy old men say, this is true romance.

13. Rushmore Brilliant, eccentric and megomaniacal fifteen-year-old Max Fischer maintains a list of extracurriculars longer than most adults' life-time resumes -- and he steers himself to all of them on two wheels. The Wes Anderson protagonist falls somewhere between hero and anti-hero, but his love life is always a loser: When he and his older millionaire companion (the ever-present Bill Murray) fall for the same first-grade teacher, sparks fly. (And Max's bike dies.)

11. Project A Honestly, in close quarters like these, it seems like running would probably be a more effective method of chase/escape than the bicycles -- Jackie Chan's sodomization with a seat-post could have been avoided that way, at any rate. On the other hand, Jackie Chan manages to use the bike pretty effectively as a weapon. Probably Ralph Macchio should have watched this shit. 10. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid Don't try this at home -- unless, of course, Paul Newman is driving. In this endearing and whimsical scene from the forever babe's turn as a Wild West bandit, Butch (ahem) Cassidy breaks away from his partner in crime and their very man-on-manly action to seduce a lovely lady (Katharine Ross). In between adorable apple-snacking, two-wheeled tomfoolery and some scandalous leg action, the couple is serenaded by the unlikeliest of lusty lyrics with "Rain Drops Keep Falling On My Head." (But spoiler alert: They don't.)

7. The Sound of Music A few decades before, Gone With the Wind already did the whole clothes-made-out-of-curtains thing, so thankfully Rodgers & Hammerstein had approximately twelve one-ups under their sleeves. In order to get the best of all possible worlds, they took Mary Poppins, added seven vaguely Germanic but distinctly Aryan children and placed them all on old-school bicycles while belting out a song about singing. If you can't get this out of your head, it could be worse: "The Lonely Goatherd."

6. The Wizard of Oz There's a reason Miss Gulch appeared later in the film as the Wicked Witch of the West: She really, really sucked. There's only one basket for this film's heroine and her "little dog, too," and it wasn't the one strapped to the back of Gulch's cruiser. For Toto, too, there was no place like home, but his just happened to be a bit smaller: the wicker basket strapped to the front of his pig-tailed, picnic-table-cloth-dressed, goodie-two (ruby) shoes, Dorothy.

5. Help! The Fab Four's second feature film comes with a plot like a small, deeply accented circus, but its scenes play like music videos - or at the very least, Monty Python clips. It turns out the guys are better musical masterminds than they are bike riders, but they ride with a vengeance. Literally. Here, the Beatles give up on their fear of being disemboweled by an evil cult and steer themselves back to bravery, opting instead to "smash them" at their temple. In the end, they must come together, with a little help from their friends, to keep from being sacrificed.

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The twenty best bicycle scenes in cinema, ever

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With rare exceptions for the Smart Car, the tandem bike and whatever those contraptions are in the Dr. Seuss books, the human evolutionary process basically stopped when mankind progressed from two legs to two wheels. If you need proof of the superiority of the cycle, look no further than film,...

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Hi, I'm Craig. 👋🏼 East London bike guy on a mission to save old bikes.

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Tips to Make Bicycling Less Risky for Kids

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Biking can be a great activity for kids. It's the first mode of transportation, other than walking or skateboarding, that children can experience independently before being able to get their driver's license. It also frees up parents from having to drive their kids everywhere. There are many advantages to

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Various surveys find a sharp decline in the number of children who ride bikes -- and there are many, many reasons why.

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Post gravel, back to the roots and rocks Presented by @ultraromance

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The Roots of Dirt | How The Mountain Bike Evolved From Clunker to Global Phenomenon