Volume 22 | 2026
Blind Spot on the Road to Sustainability: Motorcycles in UK Transport Planning Robert Stanley and Gemma Bridge
UK transport policy has prioritised car driving, active travel, and public transport, while motorcycles remain systematically excluded from planning and policy debates. This viewpoint argues that such omission is driven less by evidence and more by persistent cultural bias and safety anxieties surrounding motorcycling. Drawing on international and UK-based literature, the authors critically examine the potential role of motorcycles in addressing congestion, car dependency, and accessibility challenges, while acknowledging legitimate concerns relating to safety, emissions, and induced demand.
Book Review: The Ambiguities of European Comic Book Bikers by David Walton Jason Wragg, PhD
David Walton's The Ambiguities of European Comic Book Bikers makes an important contribution to motorcycle studies by turning scholarly attention towards a previously overlooked cultural artefact: the European comic-book biker publications. This study demonstrates convincingly that these comics merit serious critical analysis as complex cultural texts that both reflect and shape motorcycling identities across Europe.
Film Review: The Taming of the Biker, Ad Nauseam Sarah Hoiland
The Bikeriders, which roared into theaters June 21 2024, is a film that seeks to depict “outlaw” biker culture for a popular audience immersing viewers in the world of the “Vandals” a Motorcycle Club” (MC), founded in the 1960s. The story is primarily told through Kathy’s (Jodie Comer) nasally Midwestern twang, as it is relayed to Danny Lyon (Mike Faist), a photographer.
Seen from a Motorcycle: Hypomnemata by Robert Pirsig’s from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Guido Borelli
In his less elaborate passages, ZAMM shows us how the act of seeing while riding a motorcycle coincides with a performative act. Seeing things as “pure seeing” is useful for suspending our innate habit of filtering the vision of things through the intellect.
