Controlling mobility, performing borderwork: cycle mobility in Copenhagen and the multiplication of boundaries

•In a qualitative study of Copenhagen, cycle mobility is demonstrated to be a normalized urban mobility, appealing to a range of citizens.•In Copenhagen, cycle mobility is designed into the post-industrial urban identity.•Boundaries emerge at the bodily scale as differentiation, marking an inside/outside.

The paper examines Copenhagen cycle policy, showing cycle mobility to be an everyday form of urban mobility that has appeal for a wide range of citizens and which is as significant for urban life as automobility. Using a framework of governmentality, mobile subjects and borderwork, the study shows that the policies of socially inclusive cycle track systems add to urban borderwork. Articulations of a cycle-dependent Copenhagen identity and the array of expected needs and desires, wants, practices and behaviours connected to different categories of cycling Copenhageners embedded in policies and manifest in the design of green cycle tracks and of cycle super highways add to the creation of boundaries in the city.