So Ladies…
…Let’s talk about fashion. Or not.
Because I’m not much of a fashionista. And never have been.
I have gotten a little better since then. But my life doesn’t revolve around clothes. I really enjoy looking looking like crap some days.
Or a bit dirty and grungy.
And some times I even dress up (and look like Lovely Bicycle on accident.)
However when I started biking I didn’t know what to do about clothes. Or bikes. Or anything. I just wanted to try it. I didn’t see anyone on a bike who looked like any version of me. As a newbie, this was all I really knew about cyclists:
You may have noted that neither of these figures appear to be women. And I knew I was not an athlete or a hipster. Or a man.
So when I came across a certain European street-style blog of stylishly dressed women riding bicycles I signed right up. I went and bought the Dutchiest bike I could find in Los Angeles (which was actually made in China) and a bunch of flouncy dresses from H&M and promptly started biking up and down Sunset Boulevard leaving a trail of bolts and washers behind me.
But as I got more confident about with bicycle commuting, I realized something bothered me about this bike sheek culture.
It was just another stereotype.
So I moved on. I agree about wearing ordinary clothes when I bike. But now I wear my ordinary clothes which don’t happen to be dresses or heels or terribly stylish most of the time– my biking does not revolve around fashion.
You are very unfair to Mr. Colville-Andersson in implying that he photographs attractive young women on bicycles without their consent (much). You ignore the risks that he runs every day in the service of the worldwide cycling community ; because I can assure you that most Danish women can throw quite a punch if they take exception to what you’re doing. In those latitudes they’ve been into gender equality ever since Viking times.
I don’t think though that even if CCC is sometimes slightly noncey (look it up) there’s anything wrong in itself with trying to promote cycling as a means of transport perfectly compatible with looking OK – or at least not looking (as someone recently put it) “like a day-glo orange condom stuffed with horse chestnuts”. Some of it is a bit fanciful (sorry ladies, but in the real world floral print frocks don’t float airily, they either blow up over your waist or hang sullenly like a damp teacloth). But most of the examples it shows seem to be taken from real life rather than posed; and there are also quite a lot of shots of people doggedly toiling along in snowstorms. I’ve lived in Holland, and the photos do reflect the daily street reality pretty well even if they select the most eye-catching examples.
What I’d like to see is more pictures of old people on bicycles. One of the features of the Dutch cycling landscape is the number of straight-backed, smartly dressed 80-year olds pedalling about on their daily errands.
PS. Loved the drawings. Do you do it for a living?
What a wonderful blog! I stumbled across bikeyface today after doing my Craigslist and Ebay searches for the “holy grail” bike I’m dying to find out there. I am an art gallery manager and bicycle commuter in Texas who doesn’t fit into any established genre of cyclist.
I enjoy your flowing, humorous illustrations and blog content. It made my day brighter when I found this blog!
Cycle Geek mocking Cycle Chic! We love it! Nevermind these facts:
– most of the over 150 cycle chic blogs around the world are run by women
– 57% of the members of the Cycle Chic facebook group are women
– most of the cycle chic fashion shows we do around the world are focused on the female demographic.
– high heels are worn by the majority of women in cities from Stockholm to Seville, from Tokyo to Buenos Aires. Indeed, 75% of Danish women say they wear high heels on a regular basis.
But who cares about facts! Let’s just mock something we don’t understand! Let’s mock other cultures and manipulate the truth with cartoons!
It’s rather interesting – and amusing – that this is just another classic example of history repeating itself. In the early days of Bicycle Culture 1.0 in the 1880s through to the early 1900s cycle geeks mocked those citizens who had embraced the bicycle and chose to ride them in their finest clothes.
Cycling subcultures are still overly protective of their “club” and are keen to pee on fire hydrants in order to mark out their territory. But you what? Lesson #1 learned from History Repeating Itself: Mainstream cycling won the day and continued it’s reign through the 1950s. We’re returning to that again. So mock away! While you can.
It would be awesome to see bikeyface pee on a fire hydrant. A theme for a future post I hope!
Hmmmm, apparently Mikael does not like his trademarked brand to be criticized…
Hey Mikael, how many replies did your last blog post get?