ABSTRACT
Building on this reputation, city leaders a few years ago confidently declared Bogota to be the Capital Mundial de la Bici, or the “World Bike Capital.” Bicycles have been positioned in Bogota’s public sphere as an innovative tool to transform urban social conditions and the built environment. Since the middle of the twentieth century, Bogota experienced massive population growth as millions of impoverished and traumatized refugees moved there to escape civil war and armed conflict, drug cartels, and death squads in the countryside. During the early twentieth century, Bogota developed a small tram system for mass transit, which was eventually displaced by the development of a private bus system. In taking stock of Bogota and its complex relationships with bicycles, it is striking to note that, in striving for visibility and staking their claim for status and rights on city streets, today’s bici-activistas stand in sharp contrast from the majority of the city’s everyday bicycle riders.
