Invisible Cyclists and the Politics of Representation

Via Streetsblog I found this post about so-called "invisible bikers" in Los Angeles. Invisible cyclists are working-class people, many of them immigrants and people of color, who ride bikes because they don't have access to cars or reliable public transit. They're "invisible" because mainstream discussions of cycling pretty much ignore them and instead focus on fixie-riding hipsters, lycra-clad speed demons, and other middle-class cycling archetypes. The post points out that "invisible cyclists" face a whole slew of challenges, such as lack of bike parking, lack of access to well-made bikes, lack of access to health insurance, and particularly dangerous routes on which they must travel. These folks are generally not involved in cycle advocacy, and cycling advocacy groups don't court them or pay attention to their particular issues.

One of the central claims of the whole Cycle Chic movement is that representation really matters. Part of the reason that people don't cycle is that they associate cycling with negative things: hideous lycra clothes, dorky bike helmets, and testosterone-fueled assholes, for instance. One way to get people cycling is to change the perception of bike riders by broadcasting more appealing images of bicyclists. If people are taught to associate bikes with hip young women, rather than jerky guys in spandex, then they will be more inclined to ride bikes and to support improvements in cycle infrastructure.

I think this is problematic in part because it's a little naive about how ordinary folks perceive urban hipsters. This may be lost on certain bloggers, but a lot of people think of hip young urbanites as slightly obnoxious folks who follow silly trends and aren't particularly practical or sensible. But that's actually not what I want to talk about here. I want to talk about where "invisible cyclists" fit in this model of the politics of representation.

In a lot of ways, "invisible cyclists" behave in the way that the Cycle Chic people think bike riders should act. They cycle for convenience and transportation, not for sport or for environmental, political and fitness reasons. They often don't wear helmets. They usually do wear street clothes. Mikael Colville-Andersen, the guru of Cycle Chic, says that our bikes should be like our vacuum cleaners: a tool that people use, but not something that defines the person who rides the bike. We shouldn't think about ourselves as "cyclists," anymore than we think about ourselves as "vaccumists" because we clean the floors once a week. I think that most "invisible cyclists" think about their bikes that way. It's a way to get from point A to point B.

And yet "invisible cyclists" are a bit of a problem for Cycle Chic types. If it's crucial to represent cycling as hip and awesome, then it's a bit embarrassing that one of the major cycling populations in America consists of poor people. "Invisible cyclists" belong to highly stigmatized populations: they are often poor, they are often immigrants, they are often people of color. Politicians in several states are getting a lot of mileage out of policies designed to harass people like them. If we render "invisible cyclists" visible, then we risk associating cycling not with the fabulous lifestyles of hot young (usually white) women, but with hardship and social stigma.

There are two ways to deal with this problem. The first is to continue to marginalize and ignore "invisible cyclists" and to hope that improvements in infrastructure will trickle down to them. I suspect that won't work. I live in a neighborhood populated by a fair number of working-class Latino bike riders, and for the most part my city doesn't pay much attention to the infrastructure needs of our area. We don't have bike lanes, sharrows or bike racks, the way that more prosperous areas have. Hell, we don't even have sidewalks. The photo to the left shows the road leading up to my building: note that there are no bike lanes, no sidewalks, and very poor lighting. My city has pretty good bike and pedestrian infrastructure, but there's not a lot of evidence of trickling down.

And the other strategy is to embrace a different kind of politics of representation, one that recognizes all cyclists. We can change the image of cycling not by emphasizing that cyclists are fashionable and fabulous, but by pointing out that cyclists are as diverse as our communities. Cyclists encompass rich people and poor people; people who cycle for fun and fitness and people who cycle for transportation; people who choose to bike over other modes of transit and people who ride bikes because they don't have a lot of other options. If representation is political, then I'd like an inclusive politics of representation, one that aims to make cycling natural-seeming, comfortable and safe for all cyclists, not just the most glamorous ones.