Article by JP Amaral – co-founder of Bike Anjo/Brazil

Brazilian Bike Community Map

Cycling is not only an important element on urban mobility, but an instrument for citizenship and awareness of socio-environmental issues. Bike Anjo (“bike angel” in Portuguese) was created with the perception of mobilizing people using the bicycle as a tool of self and community transformation. It started in 2010 in São Paulo/Brazil as a platform where new cyclists were connected with a volunteer to help out on learning how to ride a bike, building safer routes and bike commuting.

In order for Bike Anjo to understand its network and the bicycle community in Brazil, it developed in 2014 the “Brazilian Bike Community Map” (only in Portuguese for now: http://bit.ly/mapabikeanjo2014), a research that analyzed 527 groups around Brazil which promote cycling. With this mapping, Bike Anjo was able to observe the gaps and challenges in the way these groups work and  which of these are the most relevant in bike promotion.

Most mentioned bicycle organizations/collectives in Brazil in the “Brazilian Bike Community Map” 2014:

First fact to mention from this map is that 70% of the organisations and groups analyzed work only in their cities. This means bicycle promotion is still extremely necessary as it is focused on the local level, but national and regional organisations, like Bike Anjo and UCB (Brazilian Bicycle Union), are just getting started on this mission.

A second and probably most important fact is how these groups act. A great majority of them (245 groups) only promote bike rides, which was also evaluated as positive because it is a great way to get the cycling movement started and get people engaged in other forms of action, which was exactly what we observed in some cases. Anyhow, only 3% work on research and data collection about cycling, and only 2% have done direct actions or urban interventions. Other relevant figures: 7% do rides in form of protests (ex: Critical Mass) or advocacy, and 5% promote campaigns, such as Bike to Work Day.

When you look at the 35 most mentioned organisations as a reference in bicycle promotion, a clearer picture of the overall bike movement scenario in Brazil comes to mind. From these, 28 were founded after 2008 and the majority (17) were not even registered as a formal association in 2014. Moreover, these groups have in average 9 people, mostly (if not all) volunteers, to keep the activities and organisational management going. This means that the bicycle promotion movement is still pretty young in Brazil, but is growing more and more and becoming more professional, with great accomplishments to come.

By the way, the map didn’t stop with these data and conclusions. This led Bike Anjo to learn about how to engage and connect with more partners and people through the bicycle throughout Brazil. It has also helped to engage more people with tools to promote cycling in their cities through activism and advocacy, leading them to become important agents of change towards more sustainable cities. As a result, one year and half after this research, Bike Anjo is now a network of over 3.000 volunteers in 420 Brazilian cities and 5 other countries. All this with a simple tool in our hands: the bicycle.

About the Guest Author

JP Amaral is co-founder of the Bike Anjo Network in Brazil (bikeanjo.org) and a current German Chancellor Fellow from Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.