Cycling is changing at speed – but is Britain keeping pace?

Experts say that getting more people out on their bikes requires them to feel safe and away from cars. Photograph: Gregg Vignal/Alamy

Ever since Team GB’s velodrome successes at the 2008 Olympics, campaigners and government ministers have confidently predicted that Britain is about to become a nation of cyclists. There is just one problem: for the most part, it has not happened.

Apart from a very concentrated spike in bike use during Covid, the level of cycle trips in England has stayed broadly static for years, and things do not appear to be changing.