Recruiting Cyclists in Uppsala: Why do exchange students cycle?

Sammanfattning: The current trend of emissions from the transport sector is unsustainable. To increase cycling mitigates these emissions, while also actively promoting health and alleviating congestion within cities. However, the clear benefits from cycling, along with efforts from municipalities around the world to promote cycling, have not translated in a sufficient change in behavior to reverse the global trends in emissions. Rather than looking at individual behavior, Social Practice Theory (SPT) is concerned with the practice (of cycling) as a whole. Primarily through interviews with international students about their experiences cycling and how they picked up cycling in Uppsala, voted best bike city in Sweden in 2018, I present an analysis of the recruitment process, and the overall practice of cycling in Uppsala through the lens of SPT. In this thesis I found that the pervasiveness of cycling throughout Uppsala and the social networks created by exchange students work together to recruit practitioners and spread the practice of cycling.