From the Rhins of Galloway to the Rhine - Every Cycle Tells a Story

Building on the legacy of the 2023 Union Cycliste Internationale Combined World Cycling Championships and the awarding of the ‘Bike City’ label to Glasgow in 2019 and the South of Scotland in 2023, this project aims to set the groundworks for the co-creation and enactment of an inter-disciplinary, cross-national study of long-distance cycle routes in Europe.

Long distance cycle trails (also called greenways, routes, trails or ways) are designated and waymarked routes connecting locations of natural and cultural wealth for leisure and tourism cycling. They are also complex social structures that have the potential to (re-)generate diverse forms of capital for regional socio-economic, health, environmental and cultural development. Current measures of the benefits of these routes are underdeveloped, tending towards narrow and traditional economic metrics. These cannot fully analyse cycling’s inherent and contested complexity. There is a strong need for alternative methodological approaches that consider wider dimensions and outputs of success for long-distance cycling routes.

We propose a series of mobile (by bicycle) workshops and data collection sessions on two long-distance cycling routes. Namely the Kirpatrick route in South of Scotland and the Rhine routes which traverses The Netherlands, Belgium and Germany. These routes have been chosen because they represent both emerging and established long-distance cycle routes. These workshops will allow for a uniquely nuanced and multifaceted analysis of success, challenges and possibilities and set the stage for an inter-disciplinary European funding application. The methods used will be innovative and flexible. The named SBS and HaSS team members have a recognised expertise in citizen social science collaborations (see Active Mobility and Every Tree Tells a Story, for example) as well as more traditional quantitative and qualitative approaches. These methods allow for rich, inclusive, and reflective evidence to be generated for policy makers and local authorities in a variety of disciplines beyond business and enterprise. The HASS PI leads the Strathclyde Active Mobility Hub which is a cross-Faculty multi-discipline group with specialised knowledge on cycling infrastructure, health, education, and social development.

We have assembled research and practice collaborators who are based on the two routes and we are well-networked to gather more. These collaborators will facilitate the delivery of our novel, immersive and visible project. We are well-placed to break new ground in the applied understanding of cycling route’s intersections with three UKRI strategic themes, specifically:
• Securing better health, ageing and wellbeing;
• Creating opportunities and improving outcomes;
• Building a green future.