The Joy of Biking Together: Sharing Everyday Experiences of Vélomobility

Abstract

This paper analyses how adults and children elicit and share their everyday experiences of cycling together in a variety of circumstances. Video data were collected of commuter cyclists, family bike rides and school bike tours. Using an ethnomethodologically informed approach to talk, mobile action and interactional practices, the novel video recordings of these diverse vélomobile formations are analysed in order to document how cyclists organise and mobilise their experiences and accompanying emotions in relation to the concurrent activity of biking together. Assuming that displays of emotion are situated, social activities, the analysis focuses on how embodied displays of emotion are accomplished, maintained, assessed and resisted by co-riders in motion.

Key Words:

• Vélomobility
• Bicycling
• Emotion
• Shared experience
• Social interaction
• Commuters
• Children

Notes

1. The basic set of verbal transcription symbols used in this paper are conventionalised in the field of conversation analysis (see Jefferson 2004, for more details).

2. The terminology for categorising types of infrastructure for bicycles is not uniform. In this paper, I will assume that ‘cycle path’ refers to a surfaced path specially designed for bicycles (and possibly for mixed usage with pedestrians); ‘cycle lane’ refers to a lane for bicycles marked on the road surface; ‘cycle track’ is an unsurfaced path for bicycles, often through rough or forest terrain.

3. In the verbal transcript, the codes to indicate the relative position of the two riders are as follows: #B (A is clearly behind P), #SB (A is just behind P), #SS (A is at the side of P), #SF (A is just ahead of P), #F (A is clearly ahead of P). The relative position of the co-riders is more easily visible in the chronotopic transcript.

4. Tivoli was one of the first amusement parks in the world. The name can be used generically to refer to other amusement parks. Goffman (1967) called such specialised spaces ‘action spaces’, which afford ‘vicarious experiences’ and symbolically relaxed participation with others in activities with acceptable risks and uncertainties.