Do you know the Cycling Man? If not, that’s because you might well be the Cycling Man. Or, at the very least, you may share a few traits with him.
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The Cycling Man, the brainchild of character comedian Kathy Maniura, is middle-aged, newly single, obsessed with his bike, and loves nothing more than roaming the cycle lanes of central London in full racing mode. Oh, and he’s also angry, incredibly narcissistic, and on the verge of a breakdown.
That breakdown is currently being played out on stage around the UK, as Maniura takes The Cycling Man, her new full-length drag king show, on tour, following a critically acclaimed run at last year’s Edinburgh Fringe.
The show is Maniura’s second hour of in-depth, gently absurd character studies. In 2023, her debut show, Objectified, saw her perform as a paper straw, and anxious smoke alarm, and a needy electric scooter waiting to be unlocked.
Moving away from inanimate objects and towards MAMILs, The Cycling Man was inspired by her own experiences riding her bike in central London (in jeans, she notes) and the men in Lycra and full racing kit zooming past her or towards her in the bike lane, nipping in just in time to avoid a crash.
“It was truly terrifying stuff. I always thought to myself, where are you going? You can’t possibly be going further than I’m going. You’re stopping at a light every like five minutes. It just felt like such overkill,” Maniura tells the road.cc Podcast.
“So I just got kind of annoyed at them while I was cycling. And I started doing the character to myself as I cycled. I was like, ‘I’m the cycling man. I’m really important, blah, blah, blah’. It kind of just came from there, and then I went home and started writing it.”
Maniura’s first iteration of her new cycling caricature was more in the style of traditional comedy and didn’t involve borrowing a friend’s cycling jersey. But an immersion into the world of drag kings helped her join the dots of heightened masculinity and The Cycling Man – in full Islington Cycling Club kit – was born.
And while a fuming bloke with unsightly Lycra bulges who freely admits to lacking respect for pedestrians, red lights, or “anyone who earns under 60K”, may not be the most flattering portrayal of a bike rider we’ve ever seen, The Cycling Man has earned a dedicated following among one particular demographic: cyclists.
Which, Maniura admits, surprised her at first.
“I think one of the things that I have found most surprising about performing this show is how much cyclists like it,” she says.
“It’s not flattering at all. I mean, the character is quite a horrible man. Cycling is sort of the way into that, but it could be anything, he’s a nasty guy. And he’s not very self-aware. He’s very emotionally repressed. And he sort of puts it all into his cycling.
“So I was very surprised when cyclists started coming up to me or hearing about the show and being like, oh, we love this. Firstly, I think people like being seen, they like something about themselves reflected back to them.
“But there’s also a sense of, ‘I’m a bit like that, but I’m not that guy. I know that guy and I’m not that guy’. And I think perhaps that’s the benefit of it being so absurd. He’s so heightened and so ridiculous.
“I’m sure there are some men like that, but not many, he’s really exaggerated. So I think it does allow a lot of people to be like, ‘oh yeah, well I don’t take it that far’. Which is fun. It’s nice.”
Her audiences, she says, are now filled with cyclists and their long-suffering spouses, rolling their eyes or offering a gentle nudge to the arm when an overly familiar trait is acted out in heightened form on stage.
And, of course, a show about cycling inevitably offers cyclists the perfect opportunity to nerd out over details.
“I love it when cyclists come up,” she says. “When I was developing the show, I’d have cyclists come up and tell me things I’d forgotten, or things I should change.
“I had a can of WD-40 in the show, during a bike maintenance bit. And these cyclists came up and they were like, ‘just wanted to let you know that nobody’s using WD-40 anymore’. And I was like, right, thanks.”
Since last year’s Fringe, Maniura’s taken The Cycling Man on the road to Australia, where she performed at the Adelaide Fringe, and around Britain, her spring tour coming to a close at the end of May with two dates at London’s Soho Theatre and one in Brighton.
During these shows, she’s also noticed that some of her audience relish what they believe to be digs at cyclists and cycling in general, something she’s keen to emphasise isn’t the case.
“I mean, I love cycling,” she says. “I think cycling is the future. If we’re talking about green cities, cycling’s brilliant.
“It’s tricky because sometimes people will come up to me after the show and be like, ‘yeah, fuck cycling’. And I’m like, no, no, no, that’s really not the message of the show.
“I actually think London’s not built for cycling. It’s getting better. But part of the reason I think people hate cyclists so much in London is because the city is not built for it. Cyclists have no choice but to be weaving in and out of traffic.
“I have a good friend who lives in Amsterdam – my God, what a dream, if only. With the right infrastructure, cycling is brilliant. But cycling isn’t that accessible in London. So it creates this kind of divide.
“Whereas I think, with the right infrastructure, with the right storage, and bike parking and all of this, it’s brilliant. I think everyone should be cycling. I love it.”
Kathy Maniura is currently on tour performing The Cycling Man throughout May. Information on how to get tickets can be found at her website.
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1 thought on ““People will come up to me and say: ‘Yeah, f*** cycling!’ No, that’s not the message!” Comedian Kathy Maniura on creating ‘The Cycling Man’, your local bike lane’s worst nightmare”
A suggestion for Maniura’s next show : when the cycling man collides with the speeding motorist, or hate at first strike.