Reconsidering the Bicycle

Reconsidering the Bicycle PDF Author: Luis Antonio Vivanco
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0415503884
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 182

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Book Description
In cities throughout the world, bicycles have gained a high profile in recent years, with politicians and activists promoting initiatives like bike lanes, bikeways, bike share programs, and other social programs to get more people on bicycles. Bicycles in the city are, some would say, the wave of the future for car-choked, financially-strapped, obese, and sustainability-sensitive urban areas. This book explores how and why people are reconsidering the bicycle, no longer thinking of it simply as a toy or exercise machine, but as a potential solution to a number of contemporary problems. It focuses in particular on what reconsidering the bicycle might mean for everyday practices and politics of urban mobility, a concept that refers to the intertwined physical, technological, social, and experiential dimensions of human movement. This book is for Introductory Anthropology, Cultural Anthropology, Cultural Sociology, Environmental Anthropology, and all undergraduate courses on the environment and on sustainability throughout the social sciences.

Reconsidering the Bicycle

Reconsidering the Bicycle PDF Author: Luis Antonio Vivanco
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0415503884
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 182

Get Book Here

Book Description
In cities throughout the world, bicycles have gained a high profile in recent years, with politicians and activists promoting initiatives like bike lanes, bikeways, bike share programs, and other social programs to get more people on bicycles. Bicycles in the city are, some would say, the wave of the future for car-choked, financially-strapped, obese, and sustainability-sensitive urban areas. This book explores how and why people are reconsidering the bicycle, no longer thinking of it simply as a toy or exercise machine, but as a potential solution to a number of contemporary problems. It focuses in particular on what reconsidering the bicycle might mean for everyday practices and politics of urban mobility, a concept that refers to the intertwined physical, technological, social, and experiential dimensions of human movement. This book is for Introductory Anthropology, Cultural Anthropology, Cultural Sociology, Environmental Anthropology, and all undergraduate courses on the environment and on sustainability throughout the social sciences.

Reconsidering the Bicycle

Reconsidering the Bicycle PDF Author: Luis A. Vivanco
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136656774
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 182

Get Book Here

Book Description
In cities throughout the world, bicycles have gained a high profile in recent years, with politicians and activists promoting initiatives like bike lanes, bikeways, bike share programs, and other social programs to get more people on bicycles. Bicycles in the city are, some would say, the wave of the future for car-choked, financially-strapped, obese, and sustainability-sensitive urban areas. This book explores how and why people are reconsidering the bicycle, no longer thinking of it simply as a toy or exercise machine, but as a potential solution to a number of contemporary problems. It focuses in particular on what reconsidering the bicycle might mean for everyday practices and politics of urban mobility, a concept that refers to the intertwined physical, technological, social, and experiential dimensions of human movement. This book is for Introductory Anthropology, Cultural Anthropology, Cultural Sociology, Environmental Anthropology, and all undergraduate courses on the environment and on sustainability throughout the social sciences.

Vague Direction

Vague Direction PDF Author: Dave Gill
Publisher: CreateSpace
ISBN: 9781511848060
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
VAGUE DIRECTION: A 12,000 mile bicycle ride, and the meaning of life. Watch the book trailer on YouTube: https://youtu.be/L4qGBNJkr5c The road. A place to escape, learn, and grow. A place where experiences are had, and memories formed, all of which will stay with you forever. This is the story of a year long North American bicycle journey. After all, there's a lot that happens when you get burned out, quit your job, sell everything, and leave to ride a bike for thousands of miles on another continent. You learn a lot - about yourself, about the fascinating people you encounter along the way, and maybe, just maybe, about life itself. From guns to God, death to happiness, bears to isolation, murders to crashes, frustration to joy. This book will make you reconsider life's priorities - it tackles some of the big questions in an entertaining and relatable way, and it may just inject a wanderlust and sense of adventure into your everyday thoughts. Come along with Dave as he rides his bicycle for a year, for more than 12,000 miles around North America. Along the way, he consistently meets remarkable people (such as Singing Cowgirls, Hunters, Drug Dealers & Movie Directors), and has an unforgettable experience which we can all learn from. --- "A wake-up call to anyone sleepwalking through life..." Boneshaker Magazine "Different from most cycling epics in the best way. It's more personal, often hilarious, and sometimes heartwarming, and it'll make you want to start your own adventure..." Molly Hurford - Bicycling Magazine "You don't even need to be a cyclist to be enthralled in Dave's experiences and reflections. Told with pace and charm, a wonderful account of a grand adventure." Mark Beaumont - RTW Cycling World Record Holder & BBC Presenter

Bicycle Urbanism

Bicycle Urbanism PDF Author: Rachel Berney
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 131717433X
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
Over recent decades, bicycling has received renewed interest as a means of improving transportation through crowded cities, improving personal health, and reducing environmental impacts associated with travel. Much of the discussion surrounding cycling has focused on bicycle facility design—how to best repurpose road infrastructure to accommodate bicycling. While part of the discussion has touched on culture, such as how to make bicycling a larger part of daily life, city design and planning have been sorely missing from consideration. Whilst interdisciplinary in its scope, this book takes a primarily planning approach to examining active transportation, and especially bicycling, in urban areas. The volume examines the land use aspects of the city—not just the streetscape. Illustrated using a range of case studies from the USA, Canada, and Australia, the volume provides a comprehensive overview of key topics of concern around cycling in the city including: imagining the future of bicycle-friendly cities; integrating bicycling into urban planning and design; the effects of bike use on health and environment; policies for developing bicycle infrastructure and programs; best practices in bicycle facility design and implementation; advances in technology, and economic contributions.

Bike Battles

Bike Battles PDF Author: James Longhurst
Publisher: University of Washington Press
ISBN: 0295805994
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 307

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Book Description
Americans have been riding bikes for more than a century now. So why are most American cities still so ill-prepared to handle cyclists? James Longhurst, a historian and avid cyclist, tackles that question by tracing the contentious debates between American bike riders, motorists, and pedestrians over the shared road. Bike Battles explores the different ways that Americans have thought about the bicycle through popular songs, merit badge pamphlets, advertising, films, newspapers and sitcoms. Those associations shaped the actions of government and the courts when they intervened in bike policy through lawsuits, traffic control, road building, taxation, rationing, import tariffs, safety education and bike lanes from the 1870s to the 1970s. Today, cycling in American urban centers remains a challenge as city planners, political pundits, and residents continue to argue over bike lanes, bike-share programs, law enforcement, sustainability, and public safety. Combining fascinating new research from a wide range of sources with a true passion for the topic, Longhurst shows us that these battles are nothing new; in fact they’re simply a continuation of the original battle over who is - and isn’t - welcome on our roads. Watch the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNleJ0tDvqg

Bicycle Utopias

Bicycle Utopias PDF Author: Cosmin Popan
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429754027
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 283

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Book Description
Bicycle Utopias investigates the future of urban mobilities and post-car societies, arguing that the bicycle can become the nexus around which most human movement will revolve. Drawing on literature on post-car futures (Urry 2007; Dennis and Urry 2009), transition theory (Geels et al. 2012) and utopian studies (Levitas 2010, 2013), this book imagines a slow bicycle system as a necessary means to achieving more sustainable mobility futures. The imagination of a slow bicycle system is done in three ways: Scenario building to anticipate how cycling mobilities will look in the year 2050. A critique of the system of automobility and of fast cycling futures. An investigation of the cycling senses and sociabilities to describe the type of societies that such a slow bicycle system will enable. Bicycle Utopias will appeal to students and scholars in fields such as sociology, mobilities studies, human geography and urban and transport studies. This work may also be of interest to advocates, activists and professionals in the domains of cycling and sustainable mobilities.

The Cycling City

The Cycling City PDF Author: Evan Friss
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022621107X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
Cycling has experienced a renaissance in the United States, as cities around the country promote the bicycle as an alternative means of transportation. In the process, debates about the nature of bicycles—where they belong, how they should be ridden, how cities should or should not accommodate them—have played out in the media, on city streets, and in city halls. Very few people recognize, however, that these questions are more than a century old. The Cycling City is a sharp history of the bicycle’s rise and fall in the late nineteenth century. In the 1890s, American cities were home to more cyclists, more cycling infrastructure, more bicycle friendly legislation, and a richer cycling culture than anywhere else in the world. Evan Friss unearths the hidden history of the cycling city, demonstrating that diverse groups of cyclists managed to remap cities with new roads, paths, and laws, challenge social conventions, and even dream up a new urban ideal inspired by the bicycle. When cities were chaotic and filthy, bicycle advocates imagined an improved landscape in which pollution was negligible, transportation was silent and rapid, leisure spaces were democratic, and the divisions between city and country were blurred. Friss argues that when the utopian vision of a cycling city faded by the turn of the century, its death paved the way for today’s car-centric cities—and ended the prospect of a true American cycling city ever being built.

Culture on Two Wheels

Culture on Two Wheels PDF Author: Jeremy Withers
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 0803269722
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 362

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Book Description
"Analyzes how print and visual texts of various kinds reflect, refract, and respond to the social and political significance of the bicycle from its origins in the nineteenth century to the present"--

First Taste of Freedom

First Taste of Freedom PDF Author: Robert Turpin
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
ISBN: 0815654391
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
The bicycle has long been a part of American culture but few would describe it as an essential element of American identity in the same way that it is fundamental to European and Asian cultures. Instead, American culture has had a more turbulent relationship with the bicycle. First introduced in the United States in the 1830s, the bicycle reached its height of popularity in the 1890s as it evolved to become a popular form of locomotion for adults. Two decades later, ridership in the United States collapsed. As automobile consumption grew, bicycles were seen as backward and unbecoming—particularly for the white middle class. Turpin chronicles the story of how the bicycle’s image changed dramatically, shedding light on how American consumer patterns are shaped over time. Turpin identifies the creation and development of childhood consumerism as a key factor in the bicycle’s evolution. In an attempt to resurrect dwindling sales, sports marketers reimagined the bicycle as a child’s toy. By the 1950s, it had been firmly established as a symbol of boyhood adolescence, further accelerating the declining number of adult consumers. Tracing the ways in which cycling suffered such a loss in popularity among adults is fundamental to understanding why the United States would be considered a "car" culture from the 1950s to today. As a lens for viewing American history, the story of the bicycle deepens our understanding of our national culture and the forces that influence it.

Cycling and Cinema

Cycling and Cinema PDF Author: Bruce Bennett
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 1912685035
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 234

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Book Description
A unique exploration of the history of the bicycle in cinema, from Hollywood blockbusters and slapstick comedies to documentaries, realist dramas, and experimental films. Cycling and Cinema explores the history of the bicycle in cinema from the late nineteenth century through to the present day. In this new book from Goldsmiths Press, Bruce Bennett examines a wide variety of films from around the world, ranging from Hollywood blockbusters and slapstick comedies to documentaries, realist dramas, and experimental films, to consider the complex, shifting cultural significance of the bicycle. The bicycle is an everyday technology, but in examining the ways in which bicycles are used in films, Bennett reveals the rich social and cultural importance of this apparently unremarkable machine. The cinematic bicycles discussed in this book have various functions. They are the source of absurd comedy in silent films, and the vehicles that allow their owners to work in sports films and social realist cinema. They are a means of independence and escape for children in melodramas and kids' films, and the tools that offer political agency and freedom to women, as depicted in films from around the world. In recounting the cinematic history of the bicycle, Bennett reminds us that this machine is not just a practical means of transport or a child's toy, but the vehicle for a wide range of meanings concerning individual identity, social class, nationhood and belonging, family, gender, and sexuality and pleasure. As this book shows, two hundred years on from its invention, the bicycle is a revolutionary technology that retains the power to transform the world.