I've seen the future and it's...

Sneak peek of an article I just wrote for the latest issue of my website after seeing this chap on his bike this morning (will be appearing in there under a pseudonym I think, sometimes do that just for the hell of it, and so it doesn't always appear like a personal hobby horse, though I've got a few external contributors this month).

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Is cycle chic all it's cracked up to be?

I'm no prude, and at the risk of sounding sexist I'm not going to lie and say that I don't like seeing images of pretty girls on bikes (for in the cycle chic world women seem to proliferate more than men). But there is a side of cycle chic I prefer, and it's images like the one above. Chaps in hats riding in work clothes with the merest concession to riding a bike being a trouser clip. And in what is regarded as a city too hilly and too inclement to ride in such a manner.

However, while I like images like this and think it shows cycling in a good light, I'm not sure it's something to be aimed for, rather just something that 'happens'. Let me explain.

I've been to Copenhagen. I've been to Amsterdam. And I've loved them both - as places to be, and places to cycle, they're hard to equal. And seeing people going about their daily ride in their usual clothes was eye-opening and made we want to see that replicated back in the UK. Websites on cycle chic have spread far and wide (as I understand it from the starting point of Copenhagenize, which makes sense really) and all over the globe people have started clamouring for a more cycle chic approach to cycling.

But does that get people onto bikes in the first place? I'd argue that it doesn't. Look at Copenhagen and Amsterdam and you see an infrastructure in place that took years to develop. You hear about the 'green wave' in Copenhagen (a light sequencing that favours cyclists travelling at a specific speed). You see thye cultural response to cyclists when a driver gives way to a rider before making a turn into a junction. Could all of this possibly have been created by what cyclists were wearing?

Certainly wearing 'normal' clothes makes a cyclist more like a 'person' rather than a cyclist, but I'm going to make a bold statement here. I don't think cycle chic is a 'cause' of increased cycling and bike awareness; I think it's a 'consequence'.

And the thing with consequences is that you don't have to work on them. By their very nature they just simply happen. And they happen because the other aspects fall into place. The infrastructure combined with the social psychology. Get more people riding first and as a true cycling culture grows there will be a shift into 'normality'. People aren't stupid, if you try to tell people that something is normal, without having first made it so in society, simply isn't going to wash.

And that is the simple reason why, despite loving cycle chic, my own efforts at cycling promotion will be aimed elsewhere.