Aesthetics and Lifestyle in Urban Cycling
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Aesthetics and Lifestyle in Urban Cycling by Maximilian Hoor “If a style is really to catch on, if it is to become genuinely popular, it must say the right things in the right way at the right time. It must anticipate or encapsulate a mood, a moment.” – Dick Hebdige 1979 Introduction Why the Fixed-Gear? As the bicycle is regaining attention in planning, politics and media, it is also getting more present in urban Track Cycling Bike Messengers Urban Hipsters landscapes and popular cultures: Young urbanites ride minimalistic, stylish and individualised bicycles and Photograph:Look MumNoHands “Track bikes are a gateway drug to all forms of cycling” wear messenger bags for going to work or school. Additionally bicycles can be seen in lifestyle blogs, – Mike and Gabe, Mash SF (Edwards and Leonard 2009,6) advertising, shop windows or living rooms, functioning as decoration and fashionable eye-catchers. The fixed-gear bicycle is almost as old as the bicycle Taking this observation as a starting point, my research itself. A few decades after the first free-wheel bicycle focusses on the question how bicycles are being used was invented, Henri Desgrange – founder of Tour de to express meanings, status, identification and France – is supposed to have said "I still feel that lifestyle in an urban middle class context using variable gears are only for people over forty-five (…) ethnographic observations and media analysis. As for me, give me a fixed gear!“, showing an interpretation being shared by some youngsters today. Look Mum No Hands in London is one of many examples of a new urban form: Cycling Cafés. Besides a traditional bicycle Although the first shop or repair-station, Cycling Cafés serve food and beverages, offer working opportunities, meeting points, sport Methods bicycles were fixed Leonard 2009:Fixed, 48 Photograph:Edwards & gears as well, today’s livestreams or movie nights – the all combining element being Urban cultures are fixed-gear bikes bicycles. In general bicycle-related events are gaining relevance and popularity: let it be formal trade fairs, shaped and originate from track (re)produced both in exhibitions and touristic excursions, or more bottom-up bikes, being light, initiatives like critical mass, bike rides, alleycats, races or the virtual realm and compact, aerodynamic, DIY-workshops. on the streets. safe and agile for races Many books, blogs, print- Photograph:Ownphoto Therefore an on the velodrome. In investigation of urban magazines, or movies contrast it can be Keirin Track Race in a Velodrome arose focussing on urban cycling cultures must consider both. To address this considered as an cycling. For example the issue I conducted media analysis and ethnographic “antithesis of utilitarian Hollywood movie premium observations mainly in Berlin. transportation” (Furnes rush: It is about a bicycle s 2010, 162) and was messenger getting involved I started exploring the field by attending several events, in criminal behaviour and building a single-speed bicycle myself and riding it not being used on Photograph:Edwards & Leonard 2009: Fixed,79 being chased around NYC every day. In the following research I intensified my urban streets for a long for an envelope he has. He participation in bike-centered events, visited lots of time. However, in the rides in the streets of bicycle shops, watched movies and talked to friends, late 1970s it turned into Manhattan on his fixed- activists, tinkerers and riders about cycling. For media the central item of gear bike, showing off analysis I collected examples world-wide (mostly from messenger style and stunts and getting chased subculture (Kidder by cars. The movie uses a Europe and North America) that address the bicycle messenger as the hero, and cycling in its aesthetic, stylistic and symbolic 2011). Besides practical Photograph:Columbia Pictures and the bicycle becomes dimensions in an urban middle class context. issues, riding brakeless his powerful tool – the in dense urban traffic equivalent of the fast car. presents a symbolic statement in and of itself: rider’s show their Connections between skills, power, Bicycle messenger in NYC bicycling and fashion are not new, but anyways fearlessness and punk- important. There a Photograph: Collection of H&MandBrickLane Bikes rock attitude. Photograph:goo.gl/YRHQja customised bicycles by Nowadays the fixed- exclusive fashion brands such as Armani or Chanel gear bike as well as as well as bicycle fashion messenger style (e.g. collections and co- messenger bags, bike operations by Levi’s, Fred caps) gained access to Perry, H&M or Rapha. The latter combine a specific Björn Lexius urban popular cultures: urban cycling related “The fixed-gear bike Urban Hipster in messenger style now ranks as the functionality with the brands everyday design. Photograph: second-most-visible marker of hip” (Greif 2012, 138) – Additionally bicycles are next to slim fit jeans. Hipsters adopt symbols and uses in promotions, shop A fixed-gear rider close to Hamburg’s central station doing a insignia of the messenger subculture in order to show displays and advertising – track stand while waiting for the traffic signal to turn green. off and gain distinction. And this very process made even by automobile Behind him are cars waiting in line, the driver on the right is fixed-gear bikes and messenger style commercially companies. Eventually the bicycle functions as an symbol and looking at the cyclist. The photo addresses many aspects of hip relevant for a bigger part of society and consumer eye catcher for a particular cool & hip, urban and sustainable urban cycling cultures: their publicness (lived on the streets), Lifestyle. specific practices and competences (balancing the bicycle at culture. It is now being more and more implemented in stillstand without putting a foot on the ground), and lifestyle urban popular culture, showing tendencies of (DIY fixed-gear, body language and scene-specific symbols). commercialisation, specialisation and standardisation. … and Practice My research leads me to the result that the bicycle is Why This is Important for Research… still a very heterogenous object, but is becoming Attitudes and perceptions people and society have more and more a key object of popular urban towards cycling play an important role in getting culture. It is being consumed due to aesthetic people onto bikes (Heinen et al. 2010). Affective reasons, being implemented in flexible motives like joy and fear, and symbolic motives, consumption and functions as an object of which allow riders to gain distinction and identification distinction, lifestyle and status – being the cutting due to cycling, are – besides rational motives – largely edge of a cultural revaluation towards a broader relevant for everyday transport choices (Gatersleben part of society. New target groups and potential & Uzell 2013). While the bicycle was being used as an users might want to ride the bicycle if it is perceived object of distinction and identification in the late as a hip, young and urban thing to do, taking 19th century, it has been culturally stigmatised as an attraction from the car as a symbol of status and “childens toy” or sports-object over many years (e.g. distinction. Furness 2010, Horton et al. 2007). These attributions This knowledge can help practitioners from all over are never fixed and rest upon a complex system of the world in various fields (from administration Photograph:Mikili cultural figuration where the rider, the observer and across consulting to manufacturers) to validate even “the most mundane objects (…). take on a cycling-infrastructure, communication campaigns, Wall-holders are one of many examples that show how the symbolic dimension” (Hebdige 1979) which can be bicycle is being used and rebranded today as a lifestyle and services and products and address specific urban fashion object. While many people still park their bikes on the interpreted and analysed. target groups. street, in the backyard or basement, others take them home Drawing on theories of cultural studies, social This cultural developments might give an indication and sometimes even hang them like paintings on the wall. This distinction, postmodern consumer cultures and urban on future mobility trends and individual/societal coincides with owning valuable bikes that require better protection and have a prestigious function: a bicycle hanging mobilities, I decoded figurations of todays urban needs. The engagement and further exploration of on a spot which is normally reserved for family pictures, cycling cultures, showing a symbolic revaluation of cultural factors in cycling and urban mobility in modern art or band posters – showing people’s taste and the bicycle challenging the domination of general play a crucial role in leading path towards personality. automobility in its very cultural foundations. sustainable urban mobility. References: Edwards, A. and Leonard, M. (2009): Fixed: Global Fixed-Gear Bike Culture. Laurence King, London, p. 79; Furness, Z. (2010): One Less Car. Bicycling and the Politics of Automobility. Philadelphia: Temple University Press; Gatersleben, B. and D. Uzell. (2007): The journey to work: Exploring commuter mood among driver, cyclists, walkers and users of public transport. Environment and Behaviour 39: 416-431; Greif, Mark et al. (2010): What Was the Hipster?: A Sociological Investigation. New York: n+1 Foundation; Hebdige, D. (1979): Subculture – the meaning of style. London: Routledge; Heinen, E. et al. (2010): Commuting by bicycle: An overview of the literature. Transport reviews 30 (1): 59-96; Horton, D. et al. (2017): Cycling and Society. Ashgate Publishing Limited, Hampshire / Burlington; Kidder, J.-L. (2011): Urban Flow: Bike Messengers and the City. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press..