eSince the success of Team Great Britain at the 2008 Olympics, campaigners and government ministers have confidently predicted that Britain is on the verge of becoming a nation of cyclists. There’s just one problem: more often than not, it doesn’t happen.
Aside from the spike in cycling during the Covid crisis, the level of cycle journeys in England has soared It remained broadly stable For years, things don’t seem to change.
In December, Brompton I mentioned The lowest annual sales of its eponymous folding bikes since 2021. And statistics from the Cycling Association, the trade body for the British cycling industry, Show it in 2024fewer conventional bicycles were purchased than in any other year this century.
“If you look at sales of pedal cycles since 2010, there’s not a year apart from Covid that sales haven’t fallen,” says Philip Darnton, chief executive of the Cycling Association. “I’m always baffled that people in the industry aren’t bothered about that.”
However, it is not a picture of unconditional depression. London witnesses a Sustainable cycling boomnow at nearly 1.5 million trips per day, 43% higher than in 2019. A few other places have seen increases in bike use, albeit less dramatically.
Within this mix of statistics there are a few clear lessons. To find them, it first helps to think about the different types of cyclists on our roads.
Recreational cyclists – the legendary middle-aged bikers who criss-cross the Surrey Hills or the Peak District in dayglo Lycra, rain or shine – can only be a small part of what makes a cycling nation.
Others include those who ride bikes every day for transportation, and experts agree that these people will only ride bikes if they feel it is safe, which requires long-term investment in infrastructure. Finally, with the rise of e-bikes and non-fixed rental networks like Lime, cycling is changing rapidly — but some say the government hasn’t kept up with the pace yet.
Adam Tranter, who runs a PR agency that works with cycling brands and was previously the West Midlands Walking and Cycling Commissioner, points to the gradual shift in high-end bike sales from traditional road bikes to so-called gravel bikes, designed to be ridden off-road, and to high-end indoor trainers, where people compete against each other virtually.
“It’s all code for people who say, ‘I don’t like being around cars because I don’t feel safe,’” he says. “No matter how you look at it, you can’t reach the potential of cycling without making it safer and more welcoming for cycling. “It all comes back to this basic fact.”
While Westminster governments oscillated between relative enthusiasm for cycling under Boris Johnson and Keir Starmer and the transport culture wars and intrigues of Rishi Sunak, London, in contrast, saw more than two decades of support under mayors Ken Livingstone, Johnson and then Sadiq Khan.
“For things to really change, you need strong, consistent political leadership over a long period of time,” says one senior policy figure. “If you have consistent investment, you can also attract and retain the talent and skills you need to make cycling successful in an old, crowded place like London. These people are not easy to find.”
Of course, London also has a high population density and disincentives to driving, including congestion charges and a network of low-traffic neighborhoods in many boroughs.
As anyone who has visited London recently knows, as well as growing in size, the flocks of cyclists are also changing in type, including more people on electric-assist bikes, including hired versions like the ubiquitous Lime models.
Within this is a distinct breed of machines: often astonishingly fast power tools powered by massive rear-wheel hub motors and zip-tie battery packs, many of them ridden by economy racers to delivery companies. These are not e-bikes, which is strictly defined by law. They are actually a form of electric motorcycles, which are strictly illegal but rarely challenged by the police.
“It’s a big image problem for cycling, because almost everyone confuses the two,” Tranter says. “You could address this problem overnight by forcing delivery companies to carry out checks, for example monitoring passenger speeds. But it seems we would rather complain about that.”
This new technological world means a decline in sales of traditional bicycles across Europe. The difference is that in many other countries, the balance is made up by sales of legal e-bikes.
“This year, Germany, France, the Netherlands and Spain will sell more than 5 million electric bikes between them,” Darnton says. “We might be lucky if we sell 150,000 here.”
Much of this is down to other countries having safer road conditions for cycling, as well as subsidies to help people buy sometimes expensive e-bikes, the type of scheme so far only applied to electric cars and motorcycles in the UK.
But beyond that, e-bikes suffer from an image problem, something shaped by a combination of personal experience or media coverage.
“With rental bikes, the problem is mainly their sheer popularity – as the numbers grow, so does the number of idiots, like any other mode of transport,” says Tranter. “But we ended up looking at their popularity as a problem to be solved, rather than a great success story of active mobility.”
Added to this is the almost rampant use of illegal electric bikes, many made in China, which are often dangerously fast and, unlike legal models, can contain worryingly combustible batteries.
“People read that e-bikes are dangerous and they believe it,” says Darnton. “And if your landlord says you can’t bring them onto the property, or your employer says you can’t park them in the underground parking lot, which is increasingly the case, you won’t get one.”
“In London, if you asked someone under 35 if they were thinking about buying a bike, they would say: ‘Why? I have one at the end of the road.”
He adds: “That existential word is a bit shocking, but it is true: unless we can do what Europe is doing, what will happen to the UK bicycle market is that it will become a leisure market, like golf or tennis or badminton or whatever.”