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 Bicycl