In June 2005 a group of approximately seventy cyclists, myself included, set off from London to ride to the G8 Summit in Scotland. To the outside observer this G8 Bike Ride may not have achieved any obvious political goals but it was certainly an important and empowering event in the lives of those who took part. Consequently, in November 2005 a number of participants gathered in Nottingham and formed an organisation called Bicycology to keep the dream alive.
In 2006 Bicycology organised a tour from London to Lancaster and on to the first Camp for Climate Action in Megawatt Valley near Leeds. Like the G8 Bike Ride this tour was leaderless, organised on anarchist principles, and used no motorised support vehicles. In 2007 there was another tour from Aylesbury to Exeter (two of the six so-called Cycling Demonstration Towns) and then in 2008 Bicycology organised a week-long festival of cycling and sustainability in Lancaster and Morcambe.
For the next few years Bicycology carried on as a fairly active organisation, getting involved in a number of social and environmental campaigns and having a presence at various festivals and green fairs. In the end though, with members spread around the country and getting more involved in their own projects, local campaigns, etc it seemed like Bicycology was drifting apart. There was an attempt to pull things back together in 2012 with a mini-tour of the Midlands around the slogan "Parking the Car ... For Good!" but I didn't take part and although it apparently went quite well it turned out to be Bicycology's swan song.
I managed a lot of Bicycology's online presence and the task of gracefully shutting things down seems to have fallen on me. I will be keeping the bicycology.org.uk domain registered for the forseeable future and have basically archived the website under my own personal hosting account. I will also keep the blog alive for now but other things like our organising wiki and announcement list will be shut down in due course. The following links may be of interest.