Breaking the Cycle

Publication record
Title	Breaking the Cycle
Subtitle	Representation and diversity in photographs of cyclists
Publisher	Possible‎
Authors	Rachel Aldred‎ Dulce Pedroso‎
Date	September 2024‎
Summary, keywords and locations
Summary	[ABSTRACT] This report analyses 100 ‘family cycling’ images sourced from Google UK’s Image search, including past year results up to 13/11/23. We looked at who was represented in these images, including apparent gender and ethnicity of adults and children, clothing and settings depicted, any visible disabilities, and the presence of any larger bodies. We did not find any images depicting clearly visible disabilities among riders, and images of larger bodies were rare. Usually, people depicted were white, and this became more noticeable when excluding images clearly from non-UK contexts (e.g. Latin America, East Asia). Helmets were usually worn (especially in images showing a clearly UK-based context) but cycle-specific clothing or high-visibility clothing was less commonly portrayed. The images typically appeared to portray cycling as engaged in by a version of a ‘nuclear family’ of one man, one woman, and one to three children (aside from, for instance, some showing group rides or events), although a minority showed one adult with a child or children. Where only one adult was depicted, there were roughly equal numbers of men and women shown. Hence, cycling as a family pursuit was not gendered, but the two-adult family shown as engaging in cycling was implicitly a ‘traditional’ heterosexual family. Motor vehicles or pedestrians were rarely shown as being potentially present in the same space as people cycling; however, no images showed separated cycling infrastructure. Instead, the images implied that there would be no pedestrians on rural paths and no cars on rural roads. Almost all ‘family cycling’ environments shown depicted greenery and most did not show buildings. These findings suggest a need to diversify images of ‘family cycling’ in relation to visible disability, body size, family structure and ethnicity. Authorities and other organisations should also consider collating, sourcing, and using images of newer cycling infrastructure allowing families to cycle separate from motor traffic and pedestrians.
Keywords	Cycling‎ Inclusivity‎
Locations	United Kingdom‎
How to find this document
Publication	Live as of 4 November 2024 Web PDF
Archive	Archived on 5 November 2024