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Commuter, pootler or racer: Why your bike is your identity

Your lifestyle is likely to reflect your cycling style, researcher finds

If you’d be unusually upset if your bike was stolen, there may be a reason for that, according to new research.

A cyclist’s bike often becomes an important part of their identity, according to a student at the University of Alberta.

Cyclist Karly Coleman, writing her master’s thesis on how rider identities are linked with their bicycles, found that in the same way one might identify with being a Volkswagen driver or a BMW driver, a cyclist might have a strong feeling about being a commuter, or a racer.

She told the Edmonton Journal: “The Ferrari drivers are typically some kind of person and the Volkswagen owners who are another type of person, probably not the same, they wouldn’t necessarily hang out in the same bar.

“And you get that with cyclists. Cyclists who are racers and cyclists who are commuters, they don’t really hang out that much.”

She added: “I grew up in northern Saskatchewan where the dominant culture is more automobile-oriented.

“So when I was 16, I got a car and cars were cool to have … I lived 4-1/2 miles out of town. No one even thought that you would ride your bicycle 4-1/2 miles.”

In Edmonton, Canada, where she moved to study however, the hipster culture is heavily bike-orientated, and she became fascinated by the phenomenon.

When no one considers cycling to be a viable transportation option, you end up with cities that are very unfriendly to cyclists, said Coleman, but she said that paradigm is changing.

“Bicycling infrastructure in particular gets created because people talk about it,” she said.

“Watching somebody else use that infrastructure in a role-model kind of way, then you would use it, then you would understand, ‘My neighbour does this, my neighbour rides her bike everywhere, I’m going to ride my bike. I’m going to try.’ “

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14 comments

Avatar
HV3 | 7 years ago
0 likes

Did someone pay her to write this?  I'd rather they'd done something worthwhile and dropped a few bob in a charity box.

One day she'll wake up and notice the sun rises.

And what about all those taking part in WNBR? Are they Ferrari, Volkswagen, commuter or racer. And do they hang out? If so, where?

Has the sum total of human knowledge been added to? I feel not no

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antigee | 7 years ago
0 likes

Jean-Paul Sartre dealt with this pretty well back in  1940 something with "Being and Nothingness" , more recently Rapha with their "club" subscription model of retailing have also successfully tackled this issue - the undergrad' might need to research a bit more and read Flann O'Brien or go straight to unicorn 

Avatar
pockstone | 7 years ago
5 likes

 

There is nothing new under the sun.

“The gross and net result of it is that people who spent most of their natural lives riding iron bicycles over the rocky roadsteads of this parish get their personalities mixed up with the personalities of their bicycle as a result of the interchanging of the atoms of each of them and you would be surprised at the number of people in these parts who are nearly half people and half bicycles...when a man lets things go so far that he is more than half a bicycle, you will not see him so much because he spends a lot of his time leaning with one elbow on walls or standing propped by one foot at kerbstones.” 
― Flann O'Brien, The Third Policeman

Avatar
Wolfcastle50 | 7 years ago
5 likes

I reckon I've got a different identity for each bike I ride MTB=Enduro, commuter=normal clothes, Road=Rapha wanker, Cross bike=unfit chancer. I'll happily mix between bike people. Except unicyclists​, they're a bunch of splitters!

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velodinho | 7 years ago
1 like

Identity is more to do with what you wear on your bike than the actual bike itself.

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ktache | 7 years ago
5 likes

Who doesn't mind getting their bike stolen?

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Leviathan replied to ktache | 7 years ago
0 likes

ktache wrote:

Who doesn't mind getting their bike stolen?

Damon Albarn

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Yorkshire wallet | 7 years ago
10 likes

Wait till I get that Raleigh Burner, it'll be totally fucking Mexico. 

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Morat | 7 years ago
9 likes

I think my bikes make a clear statement: Wannabe

 

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Yorkshire wallet | 7 years ago
12 likes

What a load of cobblers. I've got a road bike, a single speed, a MTB and a BMX in the garage. The only one I never commute on is the BMX. All the rest are also used for their respective purposes as well. I'd guess that even if people actually race at amateur level they probably still commute on a bike if possible. Hipsters are probably the insular culture as the bike is about image most of the time. 

Avatar
Beecho replied to Yorkshire wallet | 7 years ago
8 likes

Yorkshire wallet wrote:

The only one I never commute on is the BMX

Please do. Then you would be Nathan Barley.

Peace and fucking.

Avatar
OldRidgeback replied to Beecho | 7 years ago
0 likes

Beecho wrote:

Yorkshire wallet wrote:

The only one I never commute on is the BMX

Please do. Then you would be Nathan Barley.

Peace and fucking.

 

I commute on my BMX sometimes and it's great for riding to the station as it's short and I can take it on the train a lot more easily than I can the MTB or the road bike. Many of the BMX racers I know commute on their 20s as well. You just need a saddle with a long seatpost. My 20 is particularly good when there's snow on the ground as it happens. The wide bars make it preferable to my MTB for those conditions. My commute's only a few miles though. I do the commute on my 24 as well, but less often even though its gearing is a bit higher.

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surly_by_name replied to OldRidgeback | 7 years ago
0 likes

[/quote]

The wide bars make it preferable to my MTB for those conditions.

[/quote]

?? Aren't we all riding >74cm wide bars on our MTBs now? How wide are your BMX bars?

Avatar
Grahamd replied to Yorkshire wallet | 7 years ago
4 likes

Yorkshire wallet wrote:

 Hipsters are probably the insular culture as the bike is about image most of the time. 

Now I know why my son is taking an interest in cycling...

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