Letters

How did cycling become a class thing?

Wed Aug 18 2021 - 00:11

Sir, – Michael O'Loughlin asks, "How did cycling become a class thing?" (Opinion & Analysis, August 16th).

Social class and cycling follow a U-shaped curve. Commuting by bicycle is over-represented among professional and managerial/technical workers at one end, and among semi-skilled and unskilled workers at the other end, as shown in the 2016 census. Managerial and technical workers may appear over-represented among cyclists because they are over-represented among commuters overall.

Much more significant is the gendered nature of cycling. The 2016 census showed fewer women commuting by bicycle than did 30 years before then, whereas the number of men cycling to work has increased.

Women feel unsafe cycling. Survey after survey, like that by Sustrans in the UK, show safe cycling infrastructure – either physically separated cycle lanes or car-free streets – is the key to undoing that. – Yours, etc,

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OLIVER MORAN,

Montenotte,

Cork.

Sir, –Michael O’Loughlin goes to great lengths to make connections between cycling and being middle class. Of course, defining social class is notoriously difficult, but one solid measure that we do have is income. The AA estimates that running a car costs the owner over €10,000 per year, so instead of rather meaningless attempts to categorise people, anybody who is really concerned with social mobility and equality should surely be doing everything they can to make car ownership as unnecessary as possible. – Yours, etc,

DAVE MATHIESON,

Salthill,

Galway.

A chara, – Michael O’Loughlin refers to the Sandymount cycle-way where the local middle classes (in an alliance with Mannix Flynn) campaigned against the expansion of the cycle system in Dublin. There is widespread local opposition among residents of Sandymount, Irishtown and Ringsend who are made up of a variety of social classes and share a deep community spirit. The assertion that only well-to-do residents oppose this is both unfair and inaccurate. – Is mise,

JOHN LOUGHRAN,

Sandymount,

Dublin 4.

Sir, – I was gobsmacked to read Michael O’Loughlin’s article outlining how bicycles and therefore cycling has become a class issue. And there I have been cycling around suburbia and the hills of Dublin over the years just thinking I was exercising. Mr O’Loughlin has left me feeling that I have missed something, not sure what, but if I didn’t that know I was involved in some sort of class struggle, I definitely missed something.

Maybe, overall, Mr O’Loughlin may have helped me. As, when I go huffing and puffing around Dublin and up the hills I will have a distraction, and that will be my wondering what he was on about. – Yours, etc,

BRIAN CULLEN,

Dublin 16.

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