The Social Construction of Mountain Bikes: Technology and Postmodernity in the Cycle Industry

Abstract

In this paper, I raise some problems with the Social Construction of Technology (SCOT): the separation of its first and second stages, dealing with a technology's development, from its third stage, the wider social context; and its underelaboration of the `relevant social groups'. (RSGs) by which it claims to explain the third stage. By following up Pinch & Bijker's example of the safety bicycle with a case study on mountain bikes and the technological controversy of mountain bike frame geometry, I show that the third stage is crucial to understanding both the first and second stages. I suggest that the wider context of mountain bikes is postmodernity, and explore how these artefacts have precipitated a shift in the cycle industry's production processes from Fordism to post-Fordism. This wider context is then used to understand the social construction, not just of the artefacts, but of their RSGs and the relations among them.