Cycling in Southwark- Peter Wood

8/7/2019 Cycling in Southwark- Peter Wood

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7th Cycling and Society Symposium

Oxford 6th September 2010Wood: Inhabiting Infrastructure

Inhabiting Infrastructure: How Architectures, Rhythms andCrowds effect London's Commuter Cyclists

Peter R.H. WoodMSc Environment, Society and Space, Department of Geography, University College

London

Abstract

As London's cycling renaissance proceeds apace, this paper documents how urbancommuter cyclists in South London interacted with their transport infrastructures and withother road users. It questions conceptions of cyclists as atomic individuals, investigates howthe requirements of cycling might necessitate a more diffuse conception of agency or affect,and suggests how this might practically impact cyclists and transport professionals.

It firstly describes three exemplary situations: the cultures and networks of cycling in traffic,the subjectivity afforded by commuter cycling, and wayfinding or navigation. These examples

develop understandings of how cyclists hybridise and interact with other phenomenaphysically larger than the individual and not traditionally considered manipulable in the sameway as more hand-held tools. This develops concepts of engagement in place making linksto nonrepresentational theory (Thrift 2008) and social practice (Shove and Pantzar 2005) viatheir common constellation of concerns in the pre-cognitive, habitual and embodied.

This used a mixture of "ride-along" ethnographic methods, with subsequent video-elicitation and artefact-elicitation interviews, to produce data detailing precisely how cyclistsaffectively interact with on-road phenomena. 2010 sees the advent of large infrastructuralchanges such as the "Barclays Cycle Hire", "Barclays Cycle Superhighways" and "LegibleLondon" projects, alongside widespread increases in cycling rates. This paper aims todevelop understandings of affect and embodied skill which can directly inform analysis ofthese policies' effects.

Inhabiting Infrastructure

No longer will pedal power have to dance and dodge around petrol power -on these routes the bicycle will dominate and that will be clear to all othersusing them. That should transform the experience of cycling - boostingsafety and confidence of everyone using the routes and reinforcing my viewthat the bike is the best way to travel in this wonderful city of ours.Boris Johnson, Mayor of London, unveiling the Cycle Superhighway project

(London.gov.uk 2009)As the Mayor's words make clear, infrastructure is fundamental to cycling. Just as

essential as having a bike and a cyclist, really. This study investigates how cyclists inhabitinfrastructure, and how infrastructure might be said to inhabit cyclists. This meaning ofinhabit is two-fold. It firstly aims to explain what it feels like to cycle in South London, the

tactics used and the material or perceptual affordances of the cyclist-bike hybrid (Sheller2004, Spinney 2006). It then explores the engagement with place (Saville 2008) whichcycling entails. This probes the meeting of two theories. Firstly, agency and self can bethought of as diffused through various tools. Via affect the human body dwells within thetools that it uses, often using them more as prosthetics to shape, extend and distort humanabilities than independent instruments to be utilised (Dant 2004). Secondly, transportinfrastructures such as roads, rounadbouts and cycle routes are tools which assist thehuman body during transport, yet commonly understood as an immobile landscape whichhumans, such as cyclists, act upon. Therefore, how does affect, the interstitial (Anderson2007) force of intensive relationality (Latham and McCormack 2004; p706) by whichhumans experience their expressive intertwining with materials relate to infrastructures?Finally it asks how one type of dwelling- a tacit embodiment of infrastructure tools- relates toanother type- a sense of place-based belonging to areas that feel like home.

This study uses the term inhabit to encompass all of the practices carried out by and ascyclists, including phenomena influenced by cycling but not soley experienced whilst cycling.

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Wood: Inhabiting Infrastructure7th Cycling and Society Symposium

Oxford 6th September 2010

It defines practice as the active integration of materials, meanings and forms competence (Shove and Pantzar 2005; p45). This emphasises that transport is more thanan instrumental means of getting from A to B. It is also a complex co-constitutive ecology ofmultiple affective, embodied and socio-technical practices (Sheller and Urry 2006). These

include tacit skills, the identities and norms of cultural phenomena and relationships betweenhuman or non-human actants. This review explains how these relevant phenomena areunderstood through the literature.

Overshadowing cycling practitioners and researchers is the knowledge that automobilesare the dominant type of contemporary everyday mobility in the West (Beckmann 2001;p593). This is a system of automobility (Urry 2004) whereby automobiles are not isolatedobjects or events of mobility but a socio-technical complex that permeates and facilitatesalmost the entirety of Western lifestyles. Even when not actually driving, practices take placein relation to -assisted by, assisting or opposing- this dominant norm. However thisterminology implies a stable state. More accurately it is automobilisation (Beckmann 2001);a dominance recursively increasing its importance, a self-reinforcing spiral dynamicwhereby the automobile turns into a structural prerequisite for the organisation of everydaylife, while at the same time the variety of forms of everyday action become the structural

prerequisite for the expansion of the automobile. (p595, drawing on Kuhn 1997). The carbecoming more commonplace means increasing practices evolve from or to incorporateautomobile use. This makes automobile access increasingly necessary, common and evenpresumed, so fuelling further expansion.

Many analysts of the new urban renaissance and mobility have criticised previousliteratures for being reductive, instrumentalist and non-relational (Latham 2003). Thesecriticisms are just as relevant to understanding human behaviour and tool use as to space.Some authors have criticised automobiles for insulating their drivers from purer forms ifsocial interaction in public space (Mitchell 2005, Sennett 1974) and promoted cyclists as lesssocially cumbersome transports (c.f. Aldred 2010). However there is no such thing as pure orunencumbered humanity, or social interaction. Humanity and human interaction might betermed more than-human (Haraway 1991) because of this, synthetic and indivisible fromtheir situations. For example, cyclists in Cambridge professed enjoyment of fleeting social

interactions on the road, where civic-cultural norms evolved from interactions with road-usersand the material environment (Aldred 2010). Furthermore, these were not standaloneintentional public encounters, but chance meetings between individuals brought together bya need to travel. Relational ontologies disavow any form of tabula rasa where pre-existingsocio-cultural groups gather to perform their pre-existing practices. Instead the physicalpotential for and meanings of practices are co-constituted. Following generalised symmetry itis inappropriate to give a priori causal primacy over the situation or actor-network thatemerges to the social, material or any one actant (Latour 1993).

More-than-representational

A wide movement in the social sciences is currently re-evaluating the material; attemptingto push through the impasse of post-structuralism's social constructivist limitations andunderstand how the material relates to human thought or action, but without returning todeterministic realisms (Thrift 2005; p134). They support post-structuralist geography'sattempts to understand landscape as a signifying system through which a social system iscommunicated, reproduced, experienced, and explored (Duncan 1990; p17, in Andersonand Harrison 2010; p4). However, they accuse that movement of a preoccupation withrepresentation; the structure of symbolic meaning (or cultural representation) (ibid; p4).Paradoxically however, although discourse must be anthropogenic actants do notnecessarily act as expected (Callon 1986). For example, within transport, impacts andcrashes at above 32 kilometres per hour (km/h) have markedly more deadly effects(Hamilton-Baillie 2008; p133), irrespective of medical discourse.

Faced with uncooperative materiality and systemic change, Latham and McCormack(2004) have called for more expansive engagements with the relationships between materialand immaterial. Avoiding nave reallocations of importance to the material or renaming thenature-society dichotomy they describe four factors facilitating apprehension of theseresultant more-than-material phenomena (p707-709). Firstly, they are emergent, in thatthe urban is an ongoing outcome of the interaction between a myriad of small-scale self-


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organising processes that are not determined by a central controlling or decision-makingunit (my emphasis). For example, whilst a traffic light is designed, rush hour is the manyquasi-independent quasi-interdependent decisions which cumulatively support the systemicnorm of a roughly 9-5 working day. Secondly they are machinic; a mode of organisationrather than an object. Traffic is a system of movement indivisible to any single object. One

car is a proportion, a component of the traffic, not a traffic. Thirdly, this can be conveyeddiagrammatically as being-in-relation, not being. Traffic is not a stand alone object, but arelationship between objects: flow rates, average distances per journey. Inspired by this,system are phenomena of two or more objects which exist and function in relation to eachother, as oppose to what might be understood as non-relational moments or objects whichsimply have effects by their existence. I also take this defenition in a Latourian sense, thatalthough non-relational moments cannot truly exist, without conceptually purifying them intodiscrete objects they cannot be understood (1993; p10-12).

Latham and McCormack's fourth factor holds that materiality is expressive. Meaning isnot soley linguistic. For example, where town planning aimed to separate traffic by type (e.g.cars divided from cyclists divided from pedestrians), this did materially display, normaliseand concretise modernist instrumentalist planning discourse into the landscape (c.f. Norton2008), but this recursively altered that discourse through materials' extra-discursive qualities.

These experiential relationships create new embodied meanings; the more-than-material.The physically disquieting feeling of driving over rumble strips, vibrations and speed bumpssuggest a physical need to slow down as much as they semiotically instruct it, whilstvocabularies evolve as people experience new sensations and wish to represent them(Latour 2002). Representation is always pragmatic and incomplete (Laurier and Philo 2006).

If language is the result and not the process of thought, then affect assists conceivingthought-in-action (Anderson and Harrison 2010; p6). Affect does not have a simpledescription, but most works agree that it is the embodied means through which cognitioncombines with the noncognitive, prerepresentational, nonreflexive human body torelationallyinteract with the world (Spinney 2006). Firstly, rather than being a synonym foremotion, affect more powers the contextual mechanism of feeling emotion. For example,affect is not an individual being scared or not scared by a fall, but the way that the bodyreacts to the fall, based on previous experience, before actually thinking (Saville 2008).

Putting an arm out to stop a fall and becoming mentally alert is automatic, precognitive,affective. However, different reflexive habits can be developed with training; rolling with theimpact, for instance. However, as a relational phenomena, affect immaterially diffusesthrough tools analogously to agency. Whilst initially a person riding a bike or driving a carhas to self-consciously direct the machine, after time this becomes unthinking. Driving a car(Sheller 2004), or cycling an incline (Spinney 2006) requires cognitive reasoning- which turnto take, when to stop and drink- but the body learns to control the required muscle-mechanical movement automatically, affectively- how hard to clench the break pedal, whichmuscles to move. Furthermore, the type of exertion being done affectively alters howthought-in-action proceeds. Thinking rationally or reflexively when engaged in heavy physicalexercise becomes difficult (Spinney 2006; p722) whilst the muscles and heat receptors ofthe body begin to guide the operations of the other senses (p724). Cyclists may not somuch enjoy fear, but the exhilarating (Jones 2005; p821) embodied affective state the body

initiates to better avoid injury the possibility of colliding with a fast-moving car makes thatvehicle seem all too material. (p821). It is a felt but impersonal, visceral but not neatlycorporeal, force of intensive relationality (Latham and McCormack 2004; p706) that comesfrom manipulating the body to manipulate a tool, and relationships with the landscape-network. The sense of push in the world (Thrift 2004, p64 in Saville 2008; p893), atransverse, interstitial (Anderson 2007) phenomenon which threads together the momentsof human existence.

Understanding how human affect and agency combine during tool use has concerned ofmany studies of transport. Using a bike or car obviously gives individuals new physicalabilities, but tools also seem to alter individuals' perceptions and subjectivities. Tools oftenseem more like prosthetic bodily extensions than independent instruments. As Spinney andJones' physical exercise changed their bodies' interactions with their surroundings, so theaffective mediums of their material relationships had recursive effects. Key to this is

affordance, the types of reciprocity encountered between actants (Sheller 2004; p226).Some affordances are natural, in that round things roll downhill. However, withmanufactured artefacts in cultural contexts these reciprocities are crafted to facilitate certain

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actions and perceptions, whilst different scales can systemically interlock. For example,wheels directly facilitate transport, but they do so especially across flat surfaces such asroads, and the dominant system of automobility means that non-automobile transports areprogressively disadvantaged by the affordances of urban infrastructure increased

specialisation around automobile capabilities, and the socio-cultural forms they materially co-constitute via cultural sedimentation (p233).In addition to facilitating types of movement, affordances seem to facilitate different

perceptions and tacit forms of communication or control which rely on more-than-materialexpressiveness. Katz (1999; p32) wrote that the driver, in order to drive must embody andbe embodied by the car... feeling the bumps on the road as contacts with his or her bodywhilst fixing car doors requires a synthesis of bodily deportment and tool use (Dant 2007).Spinney (2007) further explores the embodied sensing of place resultant from bicycle-tooluse. He proposes that transportation places are interoceptively (from within) experienced assensually meaningful, in opposition to views implying that places lacking social interactionlack meaning. My study takes on this interoceptive understanding of place and extends itmore diffusely beyond the body, to more systemic places such as routes, or symbolicplaces: inhabiting London or Southwark, rather than Wandsworth roundabout (ibid; p31).

That tools might be considered able to exert and extend agency and self, even when theyare not physically in contact with the body, such as remote-controlled or timer-controlledautomatic machinery (Dant 2004) is established. Similarly, it has been suggested that actor-networks constitut[e] more or less continuous terrains for mobile action across scales(Sheller 2010; pX). Therefore, can the bodily experience of affect extend beyond theimmediate body? Saville described doing parkour as generating a feeling of engagement inplace (2008; p896). He suggested that movements in different contexts manifested differenttypes and intensities of connection with more-than-material landscapes. This seems like atool-like affective embodiment of the parkour-landscape, suggesting that infrastructures maybe explored as a means of diffusing affect, as they do agency and self.

Ash Amin (2008) has studied how learned habitual behaviours intersect with affect andhow understanding and more-than-material expressiveness might facilitate the constructionof better urban forms. This is important for cycling because transport spaces are currently

dominated by discourses (Horton 2007) and bodily perceptions (Jones 2005) of fear and risk.Concluding that desirable civic cultures result from the entanglement between people andthe material and visual culture of public space, rather than soley in the quality of socialinteraction between strangers (p8) Amin highlights situations of situated multiplicity wherethe throwntogetherness of bodies mass and matter [and purposes] creates common civicinterest via unconscious reflex (p8). This is less rational trust and formal solidarity than anunconscious, tacit yet studied, learned trust in the situation, an affect making the closecompany of strangers is automatically unthreatening.

Social Practice Theory

Another analysis of complex emergent systems can be found in social practice theory(Shove and Pantzar 2005) and transition theory (Shove and Walker 2007). These describehow small changes on highly personalised or localised scales spread through populations.

Foundational to social practice theory is a conception of practices as mutually co-produced, constantly evolving syntheses of image, stuff and skill (Shove and Pantzar2005; p62). Broadly, images are cultural representations. Stuff is the material artefacts; thetools (e.g. walking sticks) or other constituent paraphernalia (e.g. marketing leaflets). Skillmeans the learned, often tacit bodily ability to master specific material and culturalaffordances. They define practice as the active integration of materials, meanings and formsof competance (p45) and find that a seeming diffusion of practice is better understood asits successive, but necessarily localized, (re)invention. (p43). In this respect, practiceschange based on circulations of constituent meanings, competences and products (p45).

The second salient point of social practice is it's exploration of innovation niches (p54,after Kemp et al 1998). These propose that new practices are formed in small, tight clustersthat are somehow protected and coherent. These build a constituency behind a newtechnology and set in motion interactive learning processes and institutional adaptations(p54). For example, a small group of particularly keen British walkers may particularly enjoythe sport of Nordic walking, bring back the Finnish ideas, stuff and skills, but also try altering


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them to better resonate with existing British practices and groups, such as the rambler'sassociation. The carriers (p54) support the practice, incubate it and encourage it's uptakeon a small scale. For cycling this emphasises that even within the sub category of bike-based utility transport, growth is not the viral spread of a whole practice, but a diverse meanswhere existing practices of commuting start being performed via bicycle, or existing cycling

practices change, such as commuter cycling becoming seen as healthy exercise rather thandangerous. Regarding their spread, transition theory suggests that if innovation nichescreate working configurations; practices which coincide with wider populations' desires,they expand to shape and reshape the regimes and landscapes they sustain and that are inturn sustained by them (Shove and Walker 2007, p764). This provides a highly detaileddiagrammatic for conceiving how isolated moments of bike-use might build into an innovationniche, a small interdependent system of velomobility (Horton et al 2007b; p2), butsimultaneously that velomobility will not be spontaneously generated, but the relationalmeans by which new types of vehicle, infrastructures, skills and narratives mean existingpractices are best afforded by bicycle.

Methodology

10 Participants were recruited through two means: 5 were recruited through snowball

sampling along the researcher's personal networks (Browne 2005). These were intermittentfair-weather or summer cyclists who started cycling in London within the last two years. 4had cycled regularity since and at university, all first learned to cycle as children and werenow between 21 and 24 years old. The second 5 were recruited through the meetings andmembers email list of Southwark Cyclists a cycling advocacy group in the South Londonborough of Southwark. They were in their late twenties or thirties, with one woman in her late50s. All 10 were university graduates in professional or managerial employment. SouthwarkCyclists is a loose-knit and informal but politically active organisation, and the local group ofthe London Cycling Campaign (LCC 2010), a very mixed group of people who believe thatcycling as transport is undervalued, under used and under supported. It aims to encouragemore people to cycle, improve conditions for cyclists [and] raise the profile of cycling(Southwark Cyclists 2010). It has little formal connection to sports cycling such as clubcycling, racing or long-distance touring.

To ensure participant comparability, individuals' diverse routes converged in the LondonBorough of Southwark. Transport for London (TfL) policy states that the lower populationdensity and more extensive land uses of Outer London require a less intensive, [and more]area-based approach to increasing cycling (TfL 2010a; p2), and therefore the studyconfined itself to Inner London. The field-period (summer 2010) coincided with theconstruction of two large infrastructure projects; Barclays Cycle Superhighways and BarclaysCycle Hire, whilst encompassing an area of highly mixed land uses, ages of construction andtransport volumes. This gave participants ample ability to experience, demonstrate anddescribe different road conditions, infrastructures and interactions.

Each participant was followed for two commutes between their home and their place ofwork, once in either direction. This was filmed as a ride-along (Brown and Spinney 2010)by myself, using a head mounted video-camera and cycling safely behind. Immediately afterthe ride-along a field diary was written describing events from memory. Reviewing the videoprompted additional field notes. As soon as timetabling allowed two interviews were carriedout and recorded with a digital voice recorder. These took place directly after or beforecommutes and either in participants' homes or participant-suggested locations. I would self-identify as a keen commuter cyclist and joined Southwark Cyclists roughly one month beforestarting fieldwork, helping individuals feel comfortable during research.

The challenges of the mobility turn in the social sciences (Sheller 2010; pVII) are ofcontext, of being there and of linguistically representing mobility. Everyday activities are soembedded in space that to carry out data collection, for example interview in anotherunrelated space, can limit the potential of the data it removes the immediate relationshipbetween the interviewee and the emotional and social space that is being discussed, (ibid;p4). However, there are obvious safety concerns to conducting on-road interviews. Brownand Spinney (2010) have experimented with video's potential to evoke feelings of beingthere. When this study's participants were shown videos of themselves they tended to quitedryly describe what they saw being played back. Conversely, most individuals wereexperienced at map-reading to navigate their journeys. When given maps and asked to

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simply describe their journey this elicited, without prompting, far more affective memories.Firstly, I feel this was more a context-sensitive response to the subject investigated than acriticism of video-elicitation. Images did seem able to evoke the affect of cycling in a differentway to verbalised reminiscence, and so this paper supplements it's linguistic descriptions

with still frames. However, I suggest that artefact-elicitation- the recreation of mobile sub-practices in more stationary situations via the use of their constituent material artefacts ortools- can also assist to evoke memories of affect and embodiment.

Lycra-Warriors in South London

Although many types of cyclist are visible in South London, one caricature permeatedparticipants' thoughts: the lycra-warrior, lycra-lout or helmet-warrior known to the mediaand politics (TfL 2009a; p1 and illustrations 1-3). This was not a supportive description. Forindividuals like Gail, a sprightly but slight lady with three decades of commuter cyclingexperience their presence was undesirable for numerous reasons.

Cyclists as a breed have tended, have, I suppose, morphed into some alien species, and Ido feel quite... alone out there. They're all so big, and rather strangely attired. They all wearhelmets, and some of them wear masks, and they're all rather solemn, rather morose. Andfast! Where do you think you are? Stop trying to be a survivor in London and live here!

Often explicitly male, these cyclists were alienating. Whilst no-one expected muchfriendship or conversation on the road, the morose facial expressions were seen to displayan unwelcoming demeanour. Newer cyclists like Tara and Elle (left and centre of illustration2) had expected feelings of camaraderie, solidarity and we're all in this together butinstead found a highly individualistic situation where I think that at [rush hour] other cyclistsare the big risk. They look out for other cars but not you! (Elle).

Importantly however, those individuals who visibly displayed these characteristics were notaggressive, arrogant or self-affirming in that style. Michael is a computer programmer whoseroute takes 1.5 hours in each direction. For him, speed and lycra were simple necessities.That he cycled at all, well most people in the office think it's kind of odd. But only hisdistance was his emblem of personal achievement; It's quite a talking point... Most peoplepootle in from somewhere quite close, and I say I live in Kingston, 15 miles away. They'requite impressed by that,. His speed was a part of his cycling style, not simply to go faster,but because it opened up new opportunities. Interacting with buses, he found them quitehappy for you to go in front of them, you can always get away quicker

Dick, a young masters student on a new fixed-wheel racing bike (Illustrations 4 and 5), wasmore dismissive of slower cyclists, but for a surprising reason: I'm quite an aggressivecyclist really. I think I'd have the fear factor if I didn't cycle really aggressively... when I seepeople meandering really slowly in and out of the route of buses. Aargh! Even watchingthem scares me.Quite appropriately, Gail agrees: When you're going at 20mph you canjust overtake the bus and stay ahead in the clear. I get overtaken by buses and then if Iovertake them at stops they just overtake me again.Later adding, I get very annoyed with

people who say share the road, because they spend absolutely no effort whatsoever ontrying to improve the quieter backstreets... They want me to drive on the main roads and Idon't see why I should. It's very, very stressful

Illustration 1: Wedges ofcyclists sweep past

Illustration 2: The viewfrom inside the pack

Illustration 3: Stockwell's rush hourpeloton continues


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In short, cycling was dominated by a sense of foreboding, if not outright fear. Each cyclistseems to have their own ways of practically dealing with this, but as such their styles ofteninterfere. Whether considered well-equipped or over-equipped, the physically fitter cyclistscan overtake and outpace situations they fear themselves, but in so doing leave slowercyclists doubly disadvantaged. Their assertiveness and physical ability becomes indirectly

interpreted as aggression

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, whilst their tacitly displayed fear and exceptionally visibletechnological enhancements reinforces perceptions that the road is dangerous for cycling(c.f. Horton 2007). This becomes especially distressing when even other cyclists reinforcethe road's danger. As an innovation niche, some were also worried about the type of practicethis was encouraging. Cycling was accused of spreading by developing a highly specialisedpractice which accommodated existing infrastructures, rather than by developinginfrastructures facilitating diverse forms of bike-based transport or feelings of safety.

Manipulative relations

Central to the conception of cycling as a liminal practice was a quandry. Fast cyclingbenefits from many of the infrastructures demanded by motorists; smooth roads with easily

understandable layouts, traffic separated by direction, limited traffic calming or stoppingmeasures such as speed bumps or traffic lights. However, cycling does not benefit fromclose proximity to motorised traffic. Despite common perceptions, cyclists' law breaking is arelatively minor contributor to accidents as the vast majority of serious injuries or deaths ofcyclists result from motorists' actions (TfL 2010b; p19).

Basically the motorist sees you as one more obstacle in the obstacle course... theynegotiate it like a slalom...I try to make it impossible to get past me between the bollards... Ifyou're in that gap and they think there's room for a car as well then it's a challenge andthey'll go for it.Thought Miranda, a City lawyer and confident but not particularly speedycyclist. All motorists required explicit manipulation as many seemed either dismissive ofcyclists, or unused to and not expecting their presence.Three broad tactics dealt with thissituation, used at different times and in different ways by all cyclists. Firstly, as for Miranda;cyclists had to make their visibility absolutely certain through over-compensatory road

positioning. This expressive non-verbal communication was used to control drivers. It washighly relational; drivers could not be physically held back, but lengthy blocking couldeventually provoke more incautious overtaking (Katz 1999 well describes the driver'sperspective of being inhibited). Alexandra, an experienced cyclist whose daily commutemostly runs along the Embankment, an extremely fast duel carriageway, described visiting anew and quiet suburban area as scary... I don't know the driving, I'm not familiar with thespeed and the type of driving round there, because I don't really expect there to be cyclelanes, proper cycle lanes.Cyclists generally had to fit around motorists, whilst off-road cycleroutes (illustration 6), were often crowded and complicatedly shared with pedestrians.Dick had an alternative method of manipulating infrastructure at a busy gyratory system toguarantee his safety: I know the order of traffic coming out, and so...I know that there is atraffic sensitive light and, um, if there are no cars there, as soon as the cars on the right stopI can go, I can jump, and that gives me an additional 10-15 seconds, which is a considerable

1 Undoubtedly some cyclists are just aggressive. Men seemingly embarrassed (Alexandra) at beingovertaken by women were a particular annoyance, but gender was not the focus of this paper.

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Illustration 4: Suddenmanoeuvres required

Illustration 5: Impromptu drivinglessons delivered

Illustration 6: amidsthighly variable routes


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bit of distance. I can get to the roundabout before the buses catch up with me.However,aware of its illegality, it annoys me that I might be giving cyclists a bad name, but I feelthat I'd have solid grounds to say, 'hey, I don't go through every red light, I know what I'mdoing here, give me a little respect.' Inevitably, this speed created new obstacles- car doors

opening required faster reactions (illustration 4) and drivers would sometimes still overtake atexcessively high speed and proximity (in Illustration 5 Dick was mid-turn when the car spedpast). Because of this, few cyclists were entirely law-abiding, nor routinely law-breaking.They emphasised with pedestrians intimidated by cyclists, because it mirrored their own fearof motorists and understood their deviant appearance to motorists but were sceptical (atbest) that lawful behaviour was safe. Those very same tactics which have enabled cyclingto survive as an urban practice can also therefore reinforce the cyclist's already stigmatisedidentity (Horton 2007; p146)

Finally, if presented with a beast of a road (Elle) cyclists can always dismount. Again, fearwas less based on traffic speed and more on unpredictability. Every participant actuallyenjoyed The Embankment's duel carriageway because there's not roads coming acrossfrom all angles and the traffic lights are fairly simple (Elle). Whereas in Fleet Street, thevalley of death for cyclists... I sometimes walk the whole way (Gail). Although designated a

safe cycle route, Gail felt that Fleet Street's traffic-calming chicanes increased traffic'sunpredictability by forcing vehicles to move from side-to-side.Safety whilst cycling is felt to rely less on personally avoiding obstacles as on controlling

the behaviours of motorists. Via manipulating their own positioning relative to infrastructure,cyclists can use material objects and social norms to quite successfully protect themselves.However, like most tools, these require experience to use correctly and their success isreliant on motorists behaving as expected. Fundamentally, cyclists cannot physicallyoverpower motorists nor are there many areas in which cyclists are seen as dominant;cohabitation was the height of cyclists achievements'.

A Hypersensitive experience

Cyclists had somewhat more trouble with explaining what it feels like to carry out theirmanoeuvres. Watching themselves on video facilitated confused and visual descriptions, atumble of words following events unfolding on video. For example, Cars just don't respectyour, the van is just being pushy. I've had a fire engine do that to me, and that car shouldhave stopped there, and he thinks he can squeeze under me and squeeze inside me is thetranscript accompanying Dick's navigation of a gyratory (immediately following illustration 7and the blinding emergence into sunlight). It does well convey the confusing, onrushing,almost overwhelming nature of cycling. Saville described affect as emotionally moving in away that brings past movements and materials into the places we inhabit... [it] can compriseof a baffling complex of overlapping events that always have affective potential beyond thetime and space in which they once occurred. (Saville 2008; p898). However, all but one hadoriginally learned their route via trial-and-error and roadside map-reading. Giving participants

a map and asking them to describe their journey elicited fuller depictions of the embodiedphysical feelings of cycling. Cyclists linearly described their route, describing both themundane and exceptional. Map-elicited recollection were more reflexive, but this sudden

Illustration 7: negotiatingsunlight and bus lanes

Illustration 8: relaxing into therhythm and colour

Illustration 9: automobility atcross-purposes


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reflexivity often surprised cyclists and facilitated self-interrogation of why they felt differentlywhilst actually cycling:

When I do stop and think about the route that I go it's actually quite scary. That there area lot of near misses... Anything could happen to me. Lots of very good cyclists have lost theirlives... [but] I think that when you're on your bike and you're cycling, you're in that mode, that

zone, and you're focused on where you need to get to, and you kind of displace yourselffrom your body. Your mind is about what you need to be doing rather than your physicalself.(Alexandra)

Tara, another student, first mentioned being in the zone comparing it to the transientconcentration of doing an exam, you're in the zone and you're suddenly out. You're likefinished, done. Her friend Elle described it as just a slightly higher level of awareness, it'snot an uberfocused, eyes on the road, in a war! She described waiting at traffic lights in amulti-sensual and embodied manner: You're perceiving how other people are responding.You're aware of how a lot of cars are starting to rev behind you, and quite a lot of that isfeeding off the sound of a motorbike engine going RRRRRRRmm, RRRRRRmm. I think it'sconscious, but I think it's not necessarily a vibe. It's practical, you're responding to the thingsyou're seeing.Dick described it living though thin rubber tyres, of being connected to hismaterial surroundings.

This altered subjectivity had three practical effects. Hypersensitive to their surroundings,managing great complexity, at high speed, with physical exertion, cyclists were quiteunreflective. This in some ways diminished their fear, because otherwise worrying eventscould not be dwelled upon. The kineasthetic pleasure of light exercise was enjoyable andcombined with a feeling of progress [from] going in straight line for quite a long time (Elle).Conversely, stationary traffic such as traffic lights and junctions were remembered in thegreatest detail. Therefore, those situations in which motor vehicles' overwhelming size,potential speed, smell, vibrations, air pollution and heat are most apparent (illustration 9) arethe times most remembered.

Each individuals' personal experience was also salient. The least confident and newerriders were more likely to see traffic's materially-expressive characteristics as signs ofcyclists' impotence, whilst more experienced cyclists used noises and vibrations emanatingfrom vehicles to better understand road-conditions they could not see. Their agency

extending out beyond their body via an affective embodiment of the road. Newer cyclistsseemed particularly appreciative of well signed and coloured cycle routes or bus lanes(illustration 8). George had commuter-cycled at university but not in London. Seeing thisstudy as a good excuse to get back in the saddle, he felt that: It gives you thatreassurance, having that wide protected blue space... It just gives you the route. I don't thinkthat you have to worry about what you're going to do because, it's, it's laid out for you. You'rein the blue and you're expected to be there.For George, Tara and Elle, all less experiencedwayfinders, good signage repeatedly prevented an embarrassing walk to the traffic lights(George) to read a map at junctions. Even if it did not increase their average speed,diminishing the time cyclists spend being stationary would vastly improve their experience.

Dwelling in Place

9

Illustration 10:bike-only

experiences

Illustration 11:individualised tools

Illustration 12:surprising affordances

Illustration 13:engagements withurban vibrancy


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Affectively dwelling within the urban fabric was a highly emotional experience for ourcyclists. Consequentially It manifested in a strong and embodied sense of attachment andplace-based belonging to the city, but not so much for it's people.

London requires its cyclists to nurture an intimate knowledge of both oneself and the city,

but it rewards those who try. Rachel had recently moved offices and was developing a newcommute. I'll try and look for quieter routes. I don't mind going a little further if it's not goingto be hideous... I like back streets, and I like discovering all the odd little bits of London..Michael particularly enjoyed his optimizations and short-cuts whilst illustration 10 showsMiranda taking a pedestrian short-cut under a railway. These examples of filteredpermeability - routes only allowing non-motorised transport (Town and Country PlanningAssociation 2008; p7) were particularly appreciated by cyclists. Besides being nicer thancompeting with heavy traffic this was taken to demonstrate that cyclists were valued road-users. However, as in illustrations 11 and 12, some were derided for demonstrating thatcycle infrastructure was confusing, marginal and badly planned afterthought. A materiallyand socially welcoming infrastructure is important because many primarily started cycling toavoid public transport, seeing its other benefits as either secondary or unexpected.

it gets you places quicker than pretty much any other form of transport, and for me

personally it means that I don't have to bother with any other form of exercise (Rachel)I think that cycling makes me love London just 100% more. And you can tie places in, getthem connected... It's not just this big island of underground stations... But the commute,going somewhere, regardless of the method of transport, people don't want that to be asocial thing... The jewel of cycling is that you can have that bit of alone time without havingto be in a fat man's armpit.(Elle)2.

The hypersensitivity of cycling allowed the city's enjoyable vibrancy to permeate individualsas they assimilated this information into their traffic-management practices. This wasespecially enjoyable in places where cycling was felt to be accepted, normalised andphysically catered for so that cyclists were not soley resisting and adapting to motorist-domination.

You get more of a feel of the city. You can people watch, other cyclists, camaraderie ifyou get a busy time. It's more in the sounds and the smells, you get a real sort of sensual

experience. Especially... when I've gone at rush hour, in the morning, like going upBlackfriars, the buzz, the city waking up, it's unique (Dick)

To meet participants' demands London's road network would need systematic and wide-ranging changes, but not monumental alterations. It's the detail, all the time. You can livewith the roads we've got if you pay attention to the detail. (Gail). Take the illustrations to thispaper. Almost every single one has a different pro-cycling infrastructure measure, yet eachone is unique. Cyclists are expected to move almost as fast as motorists, but through farmore confusing infrastructures. This need not be so. Those wanting to cycle on main roadsat high speed did not need special infrastructures, apart from Advanced Stop Lines whichprovide highly visible positions at traffic lights. (This seems justified, in 2007, 79% of seriousmotorist-cyclist accidents occurred at or within 20m of junctions (TfL 2010b; p14)). Slowercyclists wanted assistance to navigate London's warren of minor roads3 and welcomedunique infrastructures assisting short-cuts because their slower speed made sharing space

with pedestrians safer (Hamilton-Baillie 2008) whilst current routes were circuitous andconfusing.

Improving London's backstreets could benefit both the spread of cycling, the widercommunity and individual cyclists. It seems that Lycra-warriors have successfully formed aninnovation niche. This sub-practice is fast recruiting participants (Pidd 2010), and BarclaysCycle Superhighway 7 (illustrations 1-3 and 8) is a safe, fast, direct route[ ] into centralLondon (TfL 2010c) catering to this style. This incubates the application of new technologiesto the UK context in a relatively consistent and systematic fashion and which maybecomesymbolically perceived as safe. The new wayfinding system of superhighways wasparticularly well received. However, not all individuals find lycra-warrior practices achievableor desirable (c.f. Cupples and Ridley 2008). Therefore, filtered permeability and navigability

2 TfL recently found that the tube map dominates Londoners' mental maps (AIG 2006).

3 London Cycle Network plus (LCN+) routes were seen as quiet and relatively direct. Theirsignposting was seen as so unreliable that they could only be followed with pre-existing knowledgeof the route, consequentially encouraging use of well signed main roads.


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systems on quieter roads would assist qualitatively different cycling practices. These wouldexpand cycling's potential constituency and facilitate experimentation.

Privileging heterogeneous innovation niches is also informed by Beckmann's work.Automobilization is explicitly a spiral dynamic, where heterogeneous practices incrementallybecame motorised. Facilitating one cycling sub-practice may not trigger system-wide, self-

intensifying velomobilisation. However, many mundane intra-urban transport practices areeasily translatable into velomobility without great upheaval.Finally, under the right circumstances (c.f. Amin 2008) cyclists greatly enjoyed the city's

heterogeneity and vibrancy. They did not just see it, but affectively embodied it. Theydiffused their agency and self amongst the turmoil in order to navigate it and it returned tothem a multisensual and intense feeling of place-based belonging to and of the city. Agreater material infrastructure for cycling might facilitate more civic-minded practices.Current ambivalent attitudes to traffic laws are often affective and habitual reactions to theunpredictability of motor traffic. Current networks inculcate a trust in self-judgement oversocio-legal norms. Were the civic body-politic to cease marginalising cyclists' needs theywould likely reciprocate this respect. Perhaps this mutual respect would even incrementallyreconnect Londoners with the tolerance and diversity which is foundational to inhabiting theurban.

Acknowledgements. I would like to thank everyone who took part, including the SouthwarkCyclists who weren't stalked. Alan Latham for his support of the MSc dissertation uponwhich this is based, and Rachel Aldred for talking to me about cycling before either of usknew it would become a paper. Any errors or unconvincing interpretations are my own.

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Cycling in Southwark- Peter Wood