Dr Ben Spencer is a Research Fellow at the School of the Built Environment, Oxford Brookes University.

His research focuses on how urban environments can be (re)configured to support and promote sustainable and healthy urban mobility, particularly walking and cycling. He is particularly interested in the deployment of 'mobile methods' to understand everyday interactions while on the move.

Ben was a researcher on a major UK Research Council funded study titled 'cycle BOOM'. This award winning study (Winner of the Royal Town Planning Institute Awards for Research Excellence 2017) sought to understand cycling among the older population and how this affected independence, health and wellbeing.

Presentation: Cycling beyond your sixties - 0lder people's experience of cycling in UK cities and impacts on health and wellbeing
This presentation will provide an insight into the key findings of the cycle BOOM (www.cycleboom.org). It will focus on the embodied experiences of 'resilient riders' performing cycling in UK cities as well as the experience of 're-engaged riders' attempting to reconnect with cycling after a hiatus through the experimental use of conventional pedal or electric cycles.

It will also provide an insight into the health and wellbeing benefits of cycling that emerged among study participants. The presentation will reflect on the lessons learned and provide recommendations on what planners, engineers and designers, public health practitioners and also the cycle industry can do to support age-friendly cycling.