ABSTRACT
Cycling’s possibilities and also its problems are not equally distributed or experienced. The who, along with the what, where, when and why of cycling, has been a primary topic of debate. This chapter focuses on why intersections of gender and cycling have long been, and continue to be, critical subjects attracting the attention of interdisciplinary and international writers, practitioners and researchers. Gender is used in cycling literature in various ways. At times it refers to a person’s biological sex as one attribute among many. Alternatively, gender refers to the qualities, characteristics, behaviours and functions constituted as biologically sexed bodies. One of the primary reasons cycling is intertwined with gender relates to the social and cultural contexts of its invention. Researchers are recovering the history of women’s engagement with cycling and using it to argue for the importance of representational equality and diversity.
