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Fascinating stats

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  1. chdot
    Admin

    Just bought a (newish) history of Raleigh .

    "
    AS WORLD War II drew to a close, Britain was still a country where millions of people used the bicycle as their everyday means of transport. A government survey showed that cycle usage varied depending on social class, sex, and location. However, the broad brush conclusions were:

    • About a quarter of Britons
    owned a bicycle;
    • About a quarter of urban
    dwellers used bicycles;
    • More than twice as many men
    cycled as women;
    • More than a third of people
    living in rural areas cycled;
    • More than a quarter of workers ? The middle classes were more
    regularly cycled to work; likely to cycle than the upper
    or lower classes;
    • A high proportion of white
    collar workers used bicycles;
    • Cycle use was greatest in the
    flatter parts of Britain - East
    Anglia, south-central England
    and the Midlands.
    "

    Posted 13 years ago #

  2. Claggy Cog
    Member

    The middle classes were more regularly cycled to work;

    What does this mean, by rickshaw, tandem, crossbar, backie?

    Posted 13 years ago #

  3. custard
    Member

    its funny,I wondered about class and cycling the other day
    you have those little offices down from The Bycicle Works
    now they have bike locking facilities outside and often commuter bikes locked up
    Im assumnig these businnesses are of 'the middle class' type

    Posted 13 years ago #

  4. SRD
    Moderator

    I presume it should read: "More than a quarter of workers regularly cycled to work; The middle classes were more
    likely to cycle than the upper or lower classes;" (maybe?)

    Posted 13 years ago #

  5. Cyclingmollie
    Member

    My parents bought me an old sit up and beg bike in the 70's to get to school. It still had a swing tag attached to the bars which boasted that the factory workers enjoyed one full week of paid holidays per year.

    Posted 13 years ago #

  6. crowriver
    Member

    Did not H.G. Wells himself about the liberating effect of the bicycle on "the great clerk class"? So, specifically, the lower middle class were the majority of cyclists historically.

    Quick cycling and class breakdown:

    Upper class = early adopters, mostly abandoned for the new fangled motor car.

    Middle class, upper division = wanted to be upper class, see above.

    Middle class, middle division = suburbanites, took the train, many still do, some cyclists.

    Middle class, lower division = embraced the bicycle until it became 'normal' to drive.

    Lower/working class = omnibus/walkers/a few cyclists, aspired to drive like the upper classes.

    Posted 13 years ago #

  7. gembo
    Member

    In the great Italian movie Bicycle Thieves (dir. vittoria da sica) the hero is too poor to buy a bicycle after the original gets nicked.

    There was a small faction of the left linked to cycling. the clarion newspaper and cycling clubs spread the word

    Similar small groups of working class scots explored the country by hillwalking or cycling. There is a string on here about the man from auchinleck. Not a homogenous group but linked to Christian socialism and temperance (tho some were not total abstainers like dr daker in very peculiar practice

    Posted 13 years ago #

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