Cycling and Modernity

I have come to realize that over the past century, the bicycle has become one of western civilization's bellwether artifacts, indeed it is arguably the object that best captures the changing geography of the modern age.  In the nineteenth century it was the first vehicle to offer people the possibility of rapid individual movement, it fathered the automobile industry, and it was for a while one of the defining modern artifacts of material culture - a theme I develop in my book The Ride to Modernity.  For much of the twentieth century, in contrast, it has been re-cast as a utilitarian vehicle that forms a part of daily life used to transport people and goods, and continues to be seen in this light in many developing countries (witness the many working tricycles and rickshaws in East and South Asia).  But more recently the bicycle has been reinvented again, partly as an environmentally friendly "green" machine in a postmodern world (particularly e-bikes during and post-Covid), but for others concerned with speed, status and identity, it has been re-instated as a defining modern artifact carried conspicuously on the back of a sports utility vehicle, and widely used in the media to enhance brands and "perform" other products. It has become a major commodity in international trade with sophisticated supply systems and is a product around which major trade fairs have been established (see The Routledge Companion to Cycling (2022).

THE RIDE TO MODERNITY: THE BICYCLE IN CANADA 1869-1900 - published in 2001 by the University of Toronto Press (288pp)  Copies of this book (which has over 100 illustrations) may be ordered at most book stores, or from the University of Toronto Press.  Failing this, please contact the author at gnorclif@yorku.ca

THE COUNTY BICYCLE SHOP:  CATALOGUE OF AN EXHIBITION OF BICYCLES AND TRICYCLES PREPARED BY THE BRUCE COUNTY MUSEUM AND ARCHIVES.  This exhibition has toured several county museums in Ontario and used quite extensively in local schools education programs:  Bruce County Museum in Southampton: Wellington County Museum in Fergus: Fieldcote Museum in Ancaster: and the McLaughlin Museum, Oshawa. Copies of the Catalogue may be obtained from the author at gnorclif@yorku.ca.  This exhibition is addressed to schools programmes and the general public.  It examines the role of bicycles and tricycles in the evolution of transportation technology.

VICTORIAN CYCLING. This exhibition was prepared in conjunction with the Royal Ontario Museum and displayed at Pearson International Airport March - June 2006.

CRITICAL GEOGRAPHIES OF CYCLING: HISTORY, POLITICAL ECONOMY AND CULTURE.  This book with 11 chapters was published by Routledge in June 2016.

THE ROUTLEDGE COMPANION TO CYCLING (2022).   Including shorter vignettes and section introductions, this book has 71 short chapters written by 83 authors located in 23 different countries.  The essays are presented in 8 sections, as follows:  Cycling and society; Cycle technology; The cycling economy; Urban cycling; Sport cycling, health and lifestyle; Places of Cycling; The visual culture of cycling; and Cycling in Literature.

SOME RECENT PAPERS ON CYCLING

  • Philip Mackintosh and Glen Norcliffe (2006): “Flâneurie on bicycles: acquiescence to women in public in the 1890s,” Canadian Geographer, Vol. 50, pp.17-37.
  • Glen Norcliffe (2006):  “Associations, modernity and the insider-citizens of a Victorian highwheel bicycle club”.  Journal of Historical Sociology, Vol. 19, 121-150.
  • Philip Mackintosh and Glen Norcliffe (2007) : “Men, women and the bicycle: gender and social geography of cycling in the late nineteenth century”, in D. Horton, P. Rosen and P Cox (eds)  Cycling and Society (Abingdon: Ashgate Publishing) pp.153-177.
  • Glen Norcliffe (2009):  “The Coventry tricycle: technology, gender and buzz”, Cycle History19: Proceedings of the Nineteenth International Cycle History Conference (St.Etienne: Musee d’Arts et d’Industries) pp. 136-143.
  • Glen Norcliffe (2011):  Neoliberal mobility and its discontents: working tricycles in China’s cities.  City, Culture and Society, Vol. 2(4), 235-242.
  • Boyang Gao, Weidong Liu, Glen Norcliffe, and Chao Du (2011) “Trade barriers and global production networks: a study of bicycle trade between China and Canada.”  Acta Geographica Sinica, 66(4): 477-486.
  • Boyang Gao, Weidong Liu and Glen Norcliffe (2012): Hypermobility and the governance of global production networks: the case of the Canadian cycle industry and its links with China and Taiwan. The Canadian Geographer, Vol. 56(4), 439-458
  • Glen Norcliffe (2012): “Before geography?  Early tricycles in the age of mecanicians.” Cycle History 21: Proceedings of the Twenty-First International Cycle History Conference (Centre National des Arts et Metiers, Paris, France).
  • Glen Norcliffe and Ron Miller (2013):  “Defining the nation: the rise of the Canadian Wheelmen.” Cycle History 23: Proceedings of the Twenty-Third International Cycle History Conference (Roeselare, Belgium).
  • Michael Andreae, Jinn-yuh Hsu and Glen Norcliffe (2013): “Performing the trade show: the case of the Taipei International Cycle Show”.  Geoforum, Vol. 49(1), 193-201.
  • Glen Norcliffe (2016): “Geographical imaginaries in Richard Lesclide’s ‘Le Tour du Monde en Vélocipède’.” Cycle History 26: Proceedings of the Twenty-Sixth International Cycle History Conference (Quorum, Cheltenham) pp.71-75.
  • Glen Norcliffe (2017):  “National identity, club citizenship and the formation of the Canadian Wheelman’s Association 1883-87.” Journal of Canadian Studies, Vol. 51(2)461-484.
  • Glen Norcliffe and Gao Boyang (2018):  “Hurry-slow: automobility in Beijing or a resurrection of the kingdom of bicycles?”  in Philip Gordon Mackintosh,  Richard Dennis and Deryck W. Holdsworth eds. Architectures of Hurry: Mobilities, Cities and Modernity.  London: Routledge, pp. 83-99.
  • Glen Norcliffe (2018): “Women and cycling: a revisionist interpretation.”  In Cycle History 28: Proceedings of the Twenty-Eighth International Cycle History Conference edited by Gary Sanderson (San Francisco: Cycle Publishing) pp. 86-89.
  • Glen Norcliffe, Ron Buliung, Annika Kruse and John Radford (2022): “Disability and cycling technology: A socio-historical analysis.” Disability Studies Quarterly, Vol. 42(1).  https://dsq-sds.org/article/view/8276/7609
  • Glen Norcliffe (2022): “Introduction”, in The Routledge Companion to Cycling, edited by Glen Norcliffe et al. (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge Publishing).
  • Ron Buliung, Annika Kruse, Glen Norcliffe, John Radford (2022).  “Cycling technologies and disability”, chapter 13 in The Routledge Companion to Cycling, edited by Glen Norcliffe et al. (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge Publishing).
  • Glen Norcliffe and Boyang Gao (2022): “The global bicycle industry”, chapter 14 in The Routledge Companion to Cycling, edited by Glen Norcliffe et al.  (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge Publishing).
  • Michael Andreae and Glen Norcliffe (2022): “Bicycle trade shows as transactional spaces.” Chapter 16 in The Routledge Companion to Cycling, edited by Glen Norcliffe et al. (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge Publishing).
  • Annika Kruse and Glen Norcliffe (2023): “A history of therapeutic cycles for persons with impairment.”  Cycle History 31, pp. 30-34.


THE HURON BICYCLE MUSEUM - My bicycle collection is now housed in a museum in Kincardine, Ontario that welcomes groups. The focus is on technology and education: school groups are especially welcome.