Since we first created the agency, we have repeatedly drawn your attention to the different cultures of cycling. We have explained their interest, the reasons for their existence. IIt is a question of difference, of the influence of other sporting cultures, particularly that of sliding sports, of freedom, of communities, of play, of sharing, of education, of family too, of sport of course, of imaginations, of the city and the mountains, of the real and the virtual, of philosophy, of effort sometimes but above all of pleasure. The pleasure of mobility of course.
At the end of this analysis, you’ll find our (non-exhaustive) list of these reflections. Just click on them. Some are freely available, others are VISION analyses reserved for subscribers.
We return to the topic of cycling once again with a new video by Danny MacAskill. “Do a Wheelie”. Literally. It is symbolic in many ways and has already been watched nearly 200,000 times in 24 hours. Some of MacAskill’s videos have been seen more than 40 million times, and Imaginate’s more than 92 million. This take on cycling is not a marginal one.
Let’s get back to the Wheelie. Pulling a wheelie is not anecdotal. It is more than anything a game, but it’s also a “trick”, it is a figure of speech symbolic of another cycling culture.
That’s the first bit of good news. And it’s not what bike you ride which matters, only your talent. Everyone expresses themselves and can have their own style. It’s a freestyle or freeride culture, the insiders will debate this among themselves. There is no competition, and that’s fine, it’s representative of a free practice that cycling needs, it’s an emerging phenomenon but not new, the Bikestormz days in Londonare made of Wheelie and the trend reaches France with Bikelife in Paris.
To be quite honest, there is also a link with socialising precisely because of wheelie-ing. Indeed, the rear wheel (on a motorcycle this time) has been in some American in some American neighborhoods the means to rebel. Today, it could become a means of positively distinguishing oneself if one seeks to enhance the trend, specifically through cycling. In 2017, we talked about this link, which seemed obvious to us, between urban culture and between urban culture and “neighborhoods “.
In France, cycling has always been closely linked to the Tour de France, and therefore to high-level sport and effort. In the 1980s, the all-terrain bike from California helped it slide towards something freer. Today it is synonymous with soft mobility, fixies are appearing in cities and the new generations now see it differently.
The bicycle is no longer just a sport or a means of transport, it is becoming a real culture. This is a real opportunity.
Codezero’s analysis of cycling:
- The new scenarios of cycling
- The Pump Track, a concentrate of play, sport and new life for cycling
- On Arte, cycling is not just about effort
- Cycling is making a gentle costume change
- Cycling as a creative experience and a vehicle for social integration
- Authenticity, territories, circular economy and mountain trails
- Cycling renews the image of the mountains
- How cycling is becoming an immobile and connected sport
- Electric bikes, freedom and the philosophy of effort
- Coubertin and the Olympics won’t save the suburbs, but Bikestormz allows them to exist
