At FBS headquarters, we’ve had a few people ask us “What is ‘cycling culture’ and is there any in Fairfield?” And the answer is “Yes”.
Culture is defined as collective identity, lived experiences, symbolism, creative expression. In Fairfield we have a very multicultural group of residents from so many different backgrounds but yet the simple act of riding a bicycle is a very common shared experience by most. Although the shared experience of cycling is often one found during the period of childhood, due to Fairfield’s staggeringly large ethnic diversity many people are able to reflect upon the act of cycling throughout their teenage years and beyond.
A 2011 survey identified that around 30% of residents within the Fairfield City Council area were of Vietnamese or Chinese ancestry. This was followed by people who identified themselves as being of Australian or English ancestry, who made up of just over 18% of residents within Fairfield municipality.
Anecdotal evidence from our discussions with people around the Fairfield region suggest that many people have quite fond memories of cycling during their childhood years, or have fond memories of cycling when they were still living in their country of origin but yet for one reason or another did not cycle any longer.
If you ask people in other municipalities the reason often cited for not cycling is the lack of safe cycling infrastructure. This doesn’t seem to be the case for the Fairfield City Council area. The municipality has one of the most extensive off-road cycling networks I have seen in Australia to date. Don’t believe it? Check out Fairfield City Council’s cycleways map (PDF, 802KB).
And there are very active cycling groups in the area. The most notable is the Western Sydney Cycling Network who are very proactively promoting cycling within the municipality. They run weekly Thursday and Saturday bicycle rides, a monthly community bicycle ride and in between all that teach children at schools how to cycle, teach people from Culturally and Linguistically-Diverse (CALD) backgrounds how to ride bicycles AND they fix bicycles and on-sell them at a very affordable price in order to encourage further cycling. Phew. I think I’ve covered most of what they do. No doubt they are creating a cycling culture whose epicenter is within the heart of the Fairfield Showgrounds.
And then there’s the odd old man or woman (when I say old, I mean OLD – generally in their 80s), often either of Chinese or Vietnamese ethnicity, who cycles along the footpath to and from the shops at Cabramatta. And there’s also the small group of kids who cycle in the quiet suburban streets of a weekend, generally in loops just up and down the street laughing as they pedal along. And of course there’s all those bicycles parked outside the various train stations of varying sizes, shapes and different states of repair probably owned by someone who’s discovered it’s much easier and faster to travel to the train station by bicycle than by walking, driving or catching public transport. All these people, together, create the cycling culture that is within Fairfield.
And this is the cycling culture we hope to further explore during our Fairfield Bike Shorts program.
Anyway, enough talk about our own cycling culture in Fairfield. So what other cycling cultures exist out there? Here’s a short film (documentary) we found about cycling culture within, specifically the fixed gear scene and biking community of Montreal. Check it out and share it with other cycling friends of yours so they too can get a sense of what ‘cycling culture’ means.
Fairfield Bike Shorts 