Cycle chic combines bicycles and fashion. It has inspired many women to not only ride a bike for everyday transportation, but to also photograph what they're wearing and share those images and stories with kindred spirits through social media.

The numerous bike fashion blogs that have exploded in cyberspace show urban and suburban women that they can wear whatever they want on a bicycle. Suddenly, in their eyes, biking became not only a sport for Lycra-clad men, but an easy and enjoyable way for any woman to go to work, run errands and socialize with friends.

What is remarkable about this movement is that it emerged not from the marketing offices of haute couture designers, but from the streets. Fashion-minded women parade their unique styles while riding bikes for everyone to see and take notice. This movement has made female cyclists more visible both on the streets and in the mainstream media.

A fashionable cyclist is not necessarily the same woman who attends a Critical Mass ride. But, she may join a tweed ride, a bike party and a cycle chic group ride, and may even be a member of her city's bicycle coalition. She is a bicycle advocate in her own right, simply by choosing to put her high-heeled foot on her pedal and push off the curb.

We all ride side-by-side in the same bike lane. So it seems divisive to accuse a stylish cyclist of elitism, as some critics do, when she is simply demonstrating her own sense of empowerment, liberation and freedom of movement.

Kristin Tieche is a film producer and editor who lives in San Francisco, CA. Find out more about her at velovogue.com, kristintieche.com and facebook.com/velovogue.

Elly's Rebuttal

I just can't get excited about the 'chic' bicycling movement.

Cycle chic is tied inextricably to fashion - particularly to the mainstream idea of fashion - as the realm of leggy Scandinavian blondes who presumably devote themselves to meeting a standard of attractiveness tailored to the whims of a cadre of drooling men. Want more women to bike? Don't tell us we need to dress better and be even more conscious of our body image. That's the problem, not the solution.

Also problematic is the conflation of marketing with advocacy. The founder of cycle chic praises the women he surreptitiously photographs as 'high-heeled bike advocates' while deriding North American activists working for better riding conditions.

But cyclists are flocking to the streets in places like Manhattan not because there is now an $1,100 Kate Spade mixte, but thanks to bold new networks of bike lanes, the attendant awareness and a support system of longtime activists.

There is nothing at all wrong with bicycling while wearing fashionable, expensive clothes - or your work uniform, a clown suit or even Lycra if you're tiny or male enough to find it in your size. But to suggest that doing so is a mark of progress towards widespread, accessible bicycle transportation is a hindrance.

If bike advocates - male and female - listen to women rather than buying into our objectification, then we might just find ourselves in the midst of a truly effective movement.

Elly Blue lives in Portland, OR. She writes about bicycling, including a column about the bicycle economy for grist.org, a regular news roundup for bikeportland.org and a zine called Taking the Lane. She is the cofounder of pdxbybike.com.