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As a form of ‘active transport’, cycling has been encouraged as a route to improving population health. However, in many high-income countries, despite being widely seen as a ‘healthy’ choice, few people do cycle for transport. Further, where cycling is rare, it is not a choice made equally across the population. In London, for instance, cycling is disproportionately an activity of affluent, White, men. This paper takes London as a case study to explore why the meanings of cycling might resonate differently across urban, gendered, ethnic and class identities. Drawing on qualitative interview data with 78 individuals, we suggest first that the relative visibility of cycling when few do it means that it is publicly gendered in a way that more normalised modes of transport are not; conversely, the very invisibility of Black and Asian cyclists reduces their opportunities to see cycling as a candidate mode of transport. Second …