The Courier, the Student, the Tourist. Three perspectives on cycling landscapes

As cycling is progressively promoted as a sustainable – and fashionable – means of transportation, so its enactment and representations are increasing, in multiple and diverse directions. In this paper, we focus on the urban context and on three different perspectives, based on our research experience: the cycle food courier at the mercy of digital platforms; at the opposite, the cycle tourist/traveler, exploring the city on a (shared)bike; and, finally, the commuting student, negotiating her independence during the home-school journey. We aim to explore and highlight their peculiarities, with particular attention to the fertile encounter of our different research methodologies and on the routing and visibility issues that emerge as topical in this confrontation. We investigate these three different perspectives on cycling landscapes by using auto-ethnography, surveys as well as literary sources, and then cross-fertilising these methodologies, in an attempt to unpack the mobility scripts embedded within various cycling landscapes as well as their continuous negotiation and contestation during the cycling practice.