Bicycle Utopias

What might an urban cycling future look like? This book makes a unique contribution to the sociology of mobilities and mobile methods with a critical and creative examination of where we are and where we could be. Popan questions the normative dominance of ‘fast’ urban mobilities, namely the utopian promise of the car, with his thorough and in-depth analysis of ‘slow’ cycling cultures. This timely investigation of post-automobility futures challenges the reader to imagine the possibilities of different sensory, embodied and social worlds.

Kat Jungnickel, Goldsmiths, University of London, author of Bikes and Bloomers: Victorian Women Inventors and Their Extraordinary Cycle Wear

This book impressively explores so many dimensions of changing bicycle mobilities—among them economics, policy, cultural meaning, embodiment, identity, sociability, and technology—that it is a must-read. It is also a unique and forward-thinking book, weaving together innovative methods, critical analysis, and utopian thinking to envision a future ‘slow bicycle system,’ and, more importantly, the actions and changes necessary in the present to construct that future. Cosmin Popan is a sophisticated guide through these complicated issues, and one cannot but admire the ambition and accomplishment here.

Luis Vivanco, University of Vermont, author of Reconsidering the Bicycle: An Anthropological Perspective on a New (Old) Thing

Where cycling receives massive attention in policy circles and academic discussion, by and large cycling is seen as an extension of existing paradigms. Using familiar concepts, language and tools cycling seems to be just another, long neglected member of our mobility family. But is it? With this book Cosmin Popan asks this question and proposes to use the inherent unique characteristics of cycling to challenge our existing, fundamental notions of mobility. By doing that, he presents us with much needed and refreshing thoughts on how cycling can be used to open our minds to different futures than we currently imagine.

Marco te Brommelstroet, Associate Professor in Urban Planning, University of Amsterdam

In his book, Dr Popan shows how using bicycles and going slow are not just a part of romantic scenes but rather indispensable characteristics of an improved way of life that replaces the mistaken view of ‘speed is efficiency’. It emphasizes the crucial role of the bicycle in urban mobility and boldly proposes steps to integrate this vehicle into a wider understanding of cities within the framework of a post-automobility, slow-living Utopia.

Carlosfelipe Pardo, Executive Director, Despacio.org

This timely book sets out to examine how a new ontology of urban mobility (the things that we consider important in defining how we move around) may arise out of the study of contemporary embodied and social practices of cycling. In doing so the book will be of interest to scholars of mobilities, cycling and cycle activists more broadly. Situating the current system of automobility in the systems of late capitalism the chapters in the book use ethnographic observations and a very subjective view from the saddle to demonstrate how slower and seemingly chaotic practices of cycling might be seen as a prefigurative blueprint for a mobility system of tomorrow. Imagining a shift from a situation where speed, time, isolation and comfort dominate to one where slowness, openness, sensation and convenience come to the fore, the book cleverly use the conceit of a utopia to imagine how a shift might come about if only we started to value our experiences of mobility differently. Whilst the book has perhaps less to say about the broader attitudinal, governmental and planning shifts required for such a state of affairs to arise, it does well to start us down a road where our mobility systems might be derived from our sensory and social experiences of moving rather than those imposed upon us by the broader demands of capital accumulation and the legacies of automobility.

Justin Spinney, Lecturer in Human Geography, School of Geography and Planning, Cardiff University

A thought-provoking read, encouraging us to imagine the policy and social transformations that could change cycle use from now to 2050. Cosmin is also not afraid to challenge, there is plenty here that I might agree with, and even some that I feel the need to argue with, but it is always well thought through and researched.

Kevin Mayne, Development Director, European Cyclists' Federation

Popan combines a critique of automobility with a sketch of a post-car future involving widespread bicycle use. This bicycle utopia is masterfully displayed and provides a signpost for our transport and urban planners. An exceptional and original reworking of future studies in sociology, linked to tractable and everyday ideas. The future could be on two wheels (if we have the courage to make it so).

Simon Batterbury, Chair in Political Ecology at Lancaster Environment Centre