Leisurization of Cycling: Symbolic struggles of the modalities of leisure practice

Drawing on in-depth interview data, historical documents and participant observation, the purposes of this study are to analysis how the cycling boom happened in 2007, and what the structural consequence it caused? The theoretical tools of Pierre Bourdieu, Norbert Elias, Eric Dunning and John Hargreaves are applied to illuminate historically the relations between different modalities of cycling practice and classes. The author asserted that the cycling boom in 2007 should be recognized as one distinct stage progress of leisurization process of cycling in Taiwan, and since then cycling is widely known as a fashionable leisure activity.o answer the center question, the author tried to explain how cycling be leisurize first and found that the leisurization trend of cycling could be observed since 1990s, helped by the State and bicycle producers (un)consciously. After acknowledging basic cycling leisure population, the question turned to how cycling leisure became a fashionable activity? The author concluded that it is because the construction projects of bikeways around the country contributed to consumer population of cycling leisure market, and then cultural mediations joined to recreate the symbolic significance of cycling. Finally, replying the structural consequence cycling boom caused, we found that not only has the boundary of cycling space moved, but also the economical/esthetic threshold for participating cycling leisure activity has been risen. At the end of this study, the author also compared ‘leisurization’ with ‘sportization’ and discussed two class characteristic of middle class in Taiwan consumer society.