Bicycling and the Life Course: The Start-Stop-Start Experiences of Women Cycling

ABSTRACT

Interest in cycling as a sustainable form of transport has helped foreground questions of gender and mobility. This paper reports on a qualitative study into Australian women's experiences of cycling through the life course. It focuses on the circumstances in which women start and stop cycling and the spatial contexts in which this occurs. The study found that, after childhood, almost half of the respondents had returned to cycling several times through the life course. Changes in women's cycling patterns related to changes in housing, employment, health and family status. The findings suggest productive new way of researching everyday mobility.

Key Words:

• active travel
• cycling
• life course
• sustainable transport
• women and transport

Notes

¹Personal communication, Ineke Spape SOAB Consultants, Breda, Netherlands.