ABSTRACT
This opening chapter explores the basic premises of the book. Commencing the first section which covers the theoretical concerns of thinking about cycling activism, it sets out the core ideas that the study works with and defines the boundaries of the discussion. Thinking through the implications of cycling as a solo activity and simultaneously one undertaken as part of a social collective, it examines how cyclists’ actions for self-protection and promotion can usefully be interpreted through the lens of social movement studies. The chapter develops Melucci’s contextualisation of social movement activity as a particular form of collective action to see how this broader analysis can help explain the links between different forms of cycling activism and activities. Having located the study in relation to social movements, it also places it within the emergent field of cycling studies and outlines its indebtedness to a broader mobilities paradigm and a focus on the politics of knowledge.
