The Cycling History Bibliography

Instead of riding bicycles, bicyclettes, vélos, or Fahrräder, the Dutch ride fietsen. Despite a long list of publications on the subject, the etymology of the word is still something of a riddle. Some years ago, an elaborate review of previous explanations concluded that its origins probably can be found in the regional, southern-Dutch verb vietse, meaning ‘to move quickly’ (see Sanders, 1996).

Two Belgian philologists of the University of Gent, Gunnar de Boel, a specialist in Greek literature, and his colleague Luc de Grauwe, professor of German, now claim to have discovered the real origins of the word. In the peer-reviewed Tijdschrift voor Nederlandse Taal- en Letterkunde, they argue that ‘fiets’ must have come from the short version of a hypothetical German word ‘Vize-Pferd’ (i.e. substitute horse), used jokingly and spreading already in the 1870s to the Netherlands through neighbouring and related dialects.

The argument presented by De Boel and De Grauwe is not bereft of logic, but it suffers from two serious flaws. First of all, the authors fail to discuss the most probable explanation sofar (the one that links the word to a Dutch dialect verb vietse) and simply discard it in a one-sentence footnote.  Secondly, and more fundamentally, historical evidence for the existence of a German word ‘Vize-Pferd’ (or a Dutch equivalent) – let alone for its widespread use – has yet to be found. To put it differently, the Belgian article is the first printed evidence in 140 years that suggests that such a word must have existed.  Although one can’t deny the originality of their argument, therefore, the two Belgian researchers will have a difficult time claiming that they have solved the riddle. Not surprisingly, the first expert criticisms of their thesis, by the Dutch philologist Jan Stroop and Ewoud Sanders, have already appeared on the internet and in NRC Handelsblad (27-2-2012) .

Last week, October 6-9, the Berlin Technik Museum harboured the 9th T2M international conference on the history of transport, traffic and mobility. This year’s special theme was Transport and mobility on display, inviting many papers on the way transport history is presented in museums across the world. Unlike the previous two T2M conferences, the Berlin conference did not have a special session on cycling. Still, there were a few presentations that touched upon cycling, e.g. by Hans Buiter on the Dutch cyclists’ and tourists’ association ANWB, by Roland Canu and Franck Cochoy on analysing urban photo archives, and by Charissa Terranova on a possible  ’Museum of Subversive Mobilities’. Furthermore, Manuel Stoffers presented a full paper on ‘Cycling as heritage: representing the history of cycling in the Netherlands’, showing among other things how bicycle history is presented in major technology and transport museums. Plans exist to devote again a complete session to cycling at next year’s T2M conference in Madrid, that will focus on ‘intermodality’ and is planned to be held 15-18 November 2012.

This summer Berghahn has published the first issue of Transfers. Interdisciplinary Journal of Mobility Studies. In his inspiring and ambitious editorial introduction Gijs Mom (TU Eindhoven) promises prospective readers of the new journal ‘thought-provoking stuff’, that will transcend disciplines, national (especially western) perspectives and the fixation with transport modes that is typical for many transport historians. ‘Transfers encourages scholarship that attends not only to people’s construction of the technologies and regimes of mobility, but also to the ways in which those technologies and regimes construct and position us as subjects’, Mom writes. The new academic journal wants to combine ‘the empiricism of history’ with new methodological approaches from the humanities and social sciences. Cycling receives attention in this first issue as well: ‘as an antidote against the preponderance of the automobile, we invited a geographer (Jennifer Bonham) and an historian (Manuel Stoffers) to formulate their contrasting views on the recent bicycle boom, both on the street and, especially, in scholarly and activist publications’. Intrigued? The first issue of Transfers is available online as a free sample issue.

At the end of May there will be two interesting but unfortunately partly overlapping international conferences devoted to cycling history. In itself this can be considered as a welcome sign of the times, indicating the growing interest in the topic. One conference is the 22nd version of  the International Cycling History Conferences organised since 1990. This year it is held in Paris, 25-29 May, with Sorbonne professor of history Catherine Bertho-Lavenir acting as one of the hosts. The other  conference is a public workshop in Munich, 27-29 May, sponsored by the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and devoted to Re/Cycling Histories. Among the international group of scholars convening in Munich are Iain Boal, author of an upcoming world history of cycling, Paul Rosen, writer of an historical analysis of the Raleigh company, Anne-Katrin Ebert, who wrote a comparative historical analysis of German and Dutch cycling history up  to 1940, and, again, Catherine Bertho-Lavenir, who  has published on the history of  bicycle tourism. Manuel  Stoffers will present at both conferences a paper on the Human Powered Vehicle movement and its contribution to the breaking up of the image of cycling as an obsolete mode of transport, showing among other things the picture above, of an HPV speeding with 50 mph along a Californian highway, 1980. Other contributions will deal with cycling in Africa, China, Finland, Sweden and Lithuania.

Ever since the launch of this online Cycling History Bibliography last year, we have had trouble correctly uploading updated Endnote masterfiles. We have now decided to update and correct the Bibliography directly online – so as to be better able to provide you with a correct and up-to-date version.  Several older and new titles have been added in the last few weeks, showing among other things recent articles on the history of mountain biking and the political history of the first Vuelta of Spain (1935). Please send us any titles of publications or theses on the history of cycling that are still  missing.

The second Yearbook of  the International Association for the History of Transport, Traffic and Mobility (T2M), entitled Mobility in history: themes in transport, is now available from Les Editions Alphil – Presses universitaires suisses. In the volume, 28 scholars from eleven countries on four continents review recent scholarship on mobility in history. Manuel Stoffers, Harry Oosterhuis & Peter Cox wrote the contribution on ‘Bicycle history as transport history: the cultural turn’ (pp. 265-274). We were happily surprised to discover that a bicycle is featured on the cover.

At a one-day symposium on ‘Historical Culture’ held January 13, 2010, organised by the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Maastricht University, Manuel Stoffers gave a presentation on the bicycle in Dutch cultural memory, reflecting on the recent dissertation by Anne-Katrin Ebert and proposing a follow-up by analysing Dutch bicycle posters.