Cycling and the British

Cycling is currently enjoying a boom in popularity. What are the reasons behind this phenomenon? How have perceptions and the popularity of cycling shifted? This book charts the historical development of cycling both as a leisure and sporting activity since the 19th century and explores the wider political and cultural context in which cycling in Britain emerged. In particular, it examines cycling’s relationship with environmental politics and its place in popular culture. Neil Carter successfully traverses several historical sub-disciplines, including the history of transport, leisure, sport, medicine and politics, employing the analytical tools of class, gender, political culture, the role of the state and commercialism to demonstrate how British identity has shaped and been shaped by cycling. At a time when it has become part of debates over transport and health, Cycling and the British: A Modern History provides a timely and clear analysis of the changes and continuities in attitudes towards cycling.

As a clear and detailed guide, it is an invaluable corrective to a multiplicity of lazy assumptions and popular myths often recirculated in generalist accounts ... This is a work I will return to frequently., [T]his well-written and engaging monograph will appeal to bicycle historians and enthusiasts as well as sport historians and the general reading public., This is the definitive work on the social and cultural history of the bicycle. From the Penny-Farthing to Team Sky, Neil Carter tells the story not just of cycling, but also of British society’s changing relationship with the bike., This is by far the best history of cycling in Britian. Carter has read very widely both on cycling as a recreation and as a competitive sport. He sets cycling in a broad context of social class, female emancipation and profound shifts in transport, health and enviromental policy without losing sight of the events, personalities,and the great races - Olympic medals and all - which bring the story alive., From penny farthings to safeties to mountain bikes and recumbent tricycles, Neil Carter explores how cycling has been making a political statement for 150 years. At first an elite symbol, the cycle now represents the openness and companionship of English society. It is central to the image of Englishness—the slow paced, bucolic, rural idyll.

Neil Carter is Senior Research Fellow at the International Centre for Sports History and Culture, De Montfort University, UK.