Riding across the lines

Riding across the lines is a short ethnographic film (see video below, a 10 minute version is also available) that explores alternative ways of experiencing time in adult life. It follows a childfree woman who, through endurance cycling, discovers her own “biological” clock.

Research on women and cycling often portrays a narrow figure of women cyclists—risk-averse and constrained by caregiving responsibilities. Following Luce Irigaray’s call to speak as women rather than of them, this research seeks to broaden the imagination of who count as a woman cyclist—and as a woman more generally. Drawing on Sara Ahmed’s thinking on lines and orientation, the film lingers with moments of deviation—asking not what the correct line is, but how we orient ourselves when we depart from it. Rather than claiming to resolve chrononormativity, it unsettles the timelines that structure gendered expectations of adulthood, intimacy, and care with cyclical cadence and embodied rhythm.

Filmmaking for this Phd. project enables a collaborative "co-video-making" process between researcher and participant. This approach engages with visceral, embodied experiences—such as the rhythms, pain, and joy of endurance—that often elude traditional text-based research. By jointly filming and editing, collaborators move beyond mere representation to "make and feel" something together; the focus lies equally on the process and the final product. Through this crafty and affective process we delved into nuanced understandings of gender, chrononormativity, kinship, relationality, and embodiment.

✨ A 30-minute film, My Bike, My Baby, is currently in progress.