Moving forward: conceptualizing comfort in information sources for enthusiast cyclists

摘要

This research aims to identify how the notion of comfort inthe context of bicycling is conveyed in an Americanbicycling magazine and online forum. An iterativeapproach, comprising of a content analysis and linguisticdiscourse analysis aims to go beyond the generally--accepted definition that focuses on vibrations, and identifythe different concepts and typical situations relevant tostudy comfort for enthusiast cyclists. Are discussed theselection criteria for the magazine and online forum, thedevelopment of the coding protocol (including the finaloperational definition of each concepts) and the method forretrieving and analyzing online forum posts. A quantitativeanalysis, looking at the number of occurrences for eachconcept and theme, combined with a qualitative analysis ofpronoun use, positive and negative descriptors, andopposing statements shows a complex link between thecyclist, the bicycle, and the environment. The behaviour ofthe bicycle, environmental factors, what the cyclists thinksand feels as well as the goal of the ride affect how comfortis conceptualized.