Cycling as a necessity or as a choice? Evolution of the cyclists’ profiles and the mobility’s social imaginaries in Bogotá

International audienceThe daily cyclist in Bogotá is traditionally from the working class and uses their bike mostly for economic reasons. However, it has been observed through the mobility surveys that have been carried out since 2005 that there is a constant raise of the number of cyclists, and a diversification of their profiles. An emancipation from gendered injunctions has been observed recently, along with an increase of the number of female cyclists, and a weakening of social class stereotypes connected to urban cycling. This evolution takes place in a context of promotion of urban cycling and the presence of bikes in public space through public policies, and the construction of bike lanes, regular campaigns in favour of urban cycling, and the Sunday’s Ciclovía, a 40- years institution for leisure cycling. The 2020 health crisis acted as an accelerator for this phenomenon. The social imaginaries surrounding urban cycling have been evolving along with this tendency, and the bike has become a valuable object, both through the recent victories of Colombian cyclists during famous races, in 2019, – reviving the popular enthusiasm born with Cochise Rodríguez or Lucho Herrera – and through its association with an image of freedom, in a city known for its long and arduous trips. This text offers to analyse the cyclists’ profiles diversification based on urban mobility surveys since 2005 (Encuesta de Movilidad Urbana). Interviews are currently being recorded with Bogotan cyclists and will give an idea of the evolution of social imaginaries associated with urban cycling. We can hypothesise that there is an interdependence between these two phenomena of diversification of cyclists’ profiles and evolution of social imaginaries