DEALING WITH DANGER

Abstract

This article addresses how physical risk and injury in recreational cycling can be understood as constitutive of the culture of sport. Using data from interviews with racing cyclists, accounts of cycling accidents posted on an Internet website, and items related to accidents and safety issues from cycling publications, the paper explores how the perception of risk and the occurrence of injury are constructed as everyday expected elements of the sport. Although the sport is objectively dangerous, cyclists construe risk as a salient feature of participation and routinely engage in conversational practices that normalize its occurrence, thus defusing it as a deterrent to continued participation. Cyclists were found to warrant risk as part of the terrain of riding, along with crashes, close calls, injuries and premonitions. These motifs constitute storied events, which often serve both to exhibit and to assert membership in the cycling subculture.