about me

 

I was born in Solihull, England in 1967. I live with my partner, Sue, and two children, Bobby and Flo, in Lancaster. We love this small, friendly and green city, and we love this part of north-west England, full as it is of tremendous countryside ideal for walking, cycling and generally mucking about outdoors.

I have a first degree in Geography (Hull University, 1989), Masters degrees in Values and the Environment (Lancaster University, 1996) and Sociology (Goldsmiths College, University of London, 1998), and a PhD in Sociology (Lancaster University, 2002). In-between getting myself an edukashon, I was a youth worker and did a lot of travelling. Sue and I met in Hull, and lived in Adelaide, Australia and London, England before settling in Lancaster.

I like to research, think and write about cycling. Indeed, I guess I’m gradually beginning to see doing these things as somehow constituting my ‘career’. I’ve written articles on cycling for academic journals such as World Transport Policy and Practice and Environmental Politics, and articles for magazines such as Cycle, A to B and Velo Vision. I edited (with Paul Rosen and Peter Cox) the book, Cycling and Society (Ashgate, 2007) which aimed to announce a new and important field of cycling studies. As both an academic and activist I feel committed to exploring the potential of cycling to make the world a better place. I’ve recently started to blog regularly at thinking about cycling.

I’m currently a researcher on a 3 year project funded by the UK’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, Understanding Walking and Cycling. I’m based at Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster University, which is a lovely four mile cycle commute from home. As part of this project, and along with my colleague, the Flemish anthropologist Griet Scheldeman, I’m currently undertaking ethnographic fieldwork in four English cities; Lancaster, Leeds, Leicester and Worcester. We’re trying to establish what goes on behind closed-doors, so to speak, when people consider (or fail to consider) how best to move around locally, within their home towns.

In 2007, I rode from Land’s End to John O’Groats, stopping along the way to hear the stories of many different people involved in many different aspects of cycling. On this blog, over time, I’m planning to tell the story of those stories, and of the ride which stitches them together.

When I ride I push cycling to the centre of my life; when we ride we push cycling to the centres of our lives; when we talk, think or write about cycling, we help to push cycling towards the centre of our culture. What more reason do you need, to get out there and ride?!