Wheels in motion

There’s nothing like the feeling of freedom that comes from getting on a bike. Cycling has always been a force for change, argues Hannah Ross, and perhaps it will be again

We went into lockdown last year when I was four months’ pregnant – an unsettling time to be welcoming new life into what was now a much less familiar world. One comfort has been, during even the strictest periods, being able to go out for daily exercise – as a keen cyclist, I kept biking regularly, even if I couldn’t pedal as far as I normally do.

I’m not the only one who has been cycling through the pandemic. In London and other cities around the world, from New York to Bogotá, there has been a boom in cycling. Lapsed cyclists have dragged neglected machines out of sheds and new converts jumped onto street rentals or tried to buy their own as manufacturers struggled to keep up with demand. Quieter roads and new pop-up cycle lanes gave many a new confidence to get into the saddle. I was more comfortable continuing with a sizeable bump, as it became one of the safest ways for me to attend my hospital appointments.

But there is more to cycling than just the transport or exercise benefits: any cyclist will tell you that pedalling along feels uniquely freeing, liberating even. Something I had discovered after getting back into cycling in my twenties following a long break from it, and why it had become an increasingly important part of my life, something I couldn’t now live without. It’s an undeniable mood booster: on days when I feel a bit low or stressed, if I can motivate myself to get out on my bike it almost always helps disrupt any negative thoughts that I’ve sunk into. I find it meditative and restorative. And so, it wasn’t a surprise that over this past year – as we longed for freedoms we once took for granted, and when our movements were drastically reduced – that cycling has had a renaissance.

I thought of French philosopher Simone de Beauvoir who learned to ride a bike during the Second World

War. For someone who would write about how women are not free, it’s perhaps unsurprising she delighted in the sensations of weightlessness, physical freedom and independence as she spun through the street of Paris. Each summer she would escape the Nazi-occupied capital, smuggling herself, her tent and bicycle into the so-called ‘free zone’ of Southern France, to spend weeks pedalling hundreds of miles, from the Alps to the Pyrenees. Even though wartime privations meant she frequently had barely enough food to keep the pedals turning – and one accident caused her to lose a tooth – she wrote that nothing would “deprive me of my pleasure.” It was a temporary escape from the reality of living under an oppressive occupying regime that sought to limit freedoms wherever it could, and she became completely hooked.

The pandemic cycling boom has also reminded me of why women had been so drawn to the then new activity in the late 19th century after the launch of the Safety Bicycle, the diamond-frame model from which today’s bikes descend. This design made cycling accessible for the first time, as it sought to replace the high-wheeled penny-farthing, and women jumped on in significant numbers. These early adopters weren’t living through a pandemic or war, but this was a time when women were disenfranchised, had little autonomy over their lives, few rights, and were relatively unfree, both physically and socially. The bicycle was a way to expand their world, to travel independently. It was also a lot of fun and a completely novel experience that felt physically liberating, close to flying even. Some early female riders had insults and even stones hurled at them, particularly ones who opted for knee-length bloomers instead of the oppressive and impractical long skirts, abundant petticoats and constricting corsets considered de rigueur in Victorian women’s fashion.

To power yourself along, your body moving rapidly through the air, choosing your own route – these are physical sensations which can have political consequences and it isn’t surprising that feminists at the time were particularly enthusiastic. Bicycles, with all their associations of empowerment, independence, and change, were feminist freedom machines. Susan B Anthony, a US women’s rights campaigner, went as far as to say in 1896 that bicycles had “done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world.” At the same time in the UK, the then teenage Christabel and Sylvia Pankhurst, future architects of the Women’s Social and Political Union – the Suffragettes – were also fans. They spent their weekends pedalling around the countryside with their local cycling club. Years later, bicycles would become an important tool in their campaign to spread the word about women’s votes, with members cycling to nearby towns and villages to recruit others to the cause.

But today in the UK and US at least, women still only make up under a third of cyclists. The reasons are complex: partly down to the lack of safe cycling infrastructure and also to do with the way stories about cycling too often exclude women. We can over-focus on sporting events like the Tour de

France, a men-only race that gives too narrow an image of cycling, making it appear a closed shop to many. I was so frustrated by the lack of representation that I decided to write a book, Revolutions, to tell stories of incredible and pioneering women cyclists that have too often been overlooked or side-lined.

Back in the 19th century, women getting on bikes was part of a movement that would ultimately change society and their lives for the better. Today, I hope our renewed pedal-love will make cycling a more inclusive activity and, as a result, it will also help power another kind of societal change, one where we reject congested roads and pollution and insist on breathing clean air and feeling safe on our roads. Travelling in a healthier and more pleasurable way is something we all deserve. I just hope that these are things my daughter will be able to take for granted when she’s old enough to get on her own bike.

Revolutions: How Women Changed the World On

Two Wheels by Hannah Ross (W&N).

“Cycling was a lot of fun and felt physically liberating, close to flying even”