Framing Production: Technology, Culture, and Change in the British Bicycle Industry

The production of bicycles in Britain and the United States recentlysuffered severe setbacks. The renowned American Schwinn brand was downgraded to themass market by its new owners following bankruptcy, and Britain's Raleigh came closeto closure because of high debts and poor returns, saved only by a last-minutemanagement buyout. In both cases, market share and credibility were lost to newer, more innovative firms, as well as to a recentering of the global bicycle industry inthe Far East.This book reflects on such changes by setting them within asociological and historical context. It focuses on the British bicycle industry inthe interwar years and in the 1980s and the 1990s--periods characterized bymodernization of production and of industrial organization, by changing relationsamong players in the industry, by new developments in labor relations, and bychanges in interactions between markets and product design. In particular, it tracesthe fortunes of the Raleigh Cycle Company from its beginnings as an innovative youngfirm, through massive expansion of its products and markets and the assimilation ofmany of its competitors, into further innovation amid market contraction andmanagement inertia, and finally into a phase of global restructuring that hastransformed and reduced its role within the industry.The book explores the complexways in which product design, production methods, industrial organization, and thecultures of cycling have interacted to create a succession of sociotechnical framesfor the bicycle. At the same time, on an activist level, the book promotes aparticipatory politics of bicycle technology and a less car-centered view ofpersonal transportation.