History of cycling
Racing
The first documented
The oldest established bicycle racing club in the United States is the St. Louis Cycling Club. Operating continuously since 1887, the club has sponsored races and timed distance events since its inception. Its members have included numerous national champions and Olympic team members.
Recreation
Cycling as recreation became organized shortly after racing did. In its early days, cycling brought the sexes together in an unchaperoned way, particularly after the 1880s when cycling became more accessible owing to the invention of the Rover Safety bicycle. Public cries of alarm at the prospect of moral chaos arose from this and from the evolution of women’s cycling attire, which grew progressively less enveloping and restrictive.[5]
On 4 March 1915 the society for the construction of cycle paths in the Gooi and Eemland region in the Netherlands was founded. It is the last private “Cycle Path Society” that still exists today. Some people thought the increasing amount of motor traffic in the early 20th century was so dangerous for people cycling, especially those who rode as a leisure activity, that they wanted separate cycling infrastructure to be built. The routes would also not be connected to a route for motor traffic and mainly for recreation – so not the shortest routes, but the nicest routes.[6]
Commuting
People have been riding bicycles to work since the initial bicycle heyday of the 1890s. According to the website Bike to Work, this practice continued in the United States until the 1920s, when biking experienced a sharp drop, in part due to the growth of
Today many people ride bikes to work for a variety of reasons including fitness, environmental concerns, convenience, frugality, and enjoyment. According to the US Census Bureau’s 2008 American Community Survey(ACS), on September 22, 2009, 0.55 percent of Americans use a bicycle as the primary means of getting to work.[8] Some places of employment offer amenities to bike commuters, such as showers, changing rooms, indoor bike racks and other secure bike parking.
Touring
Many cyclists wanted to use their machines to travel; some of them went around the world. Annie Londonderry did so in 1894–95, taking 15 months.[9] Six Indian men cycled 71000 km around the world in the 1920s.[10]
The cycling craze
With four key aspects (steering, safety, comfort and speed) improved over the penny-farthing, bicycles became very popular among elites and the middle classes in Europe and North America in the middle and late 1890s. It was the first bicycle that was suitable for women, and as such became the "freedom machine" (as American feminist Susan B. Anthony called it),[11] giving women "a feeling of freedom and self-reliance".[12]
The
Bicycle historians often call this period the "golden age" or "
The Panic of 1893 wiped out many American manufacturers who had not followed the lead of Pope and Schoeninger, in the same way that the Great Depression would ruin car makers who did not follow Ford.[14]
Women's cycling
The impact of the bicycle on female emancipation should not be underestimated. The safety bicycle gave women unprecedented mobility, contributing to their larger participation in the lives of Western nations. As bicycles became safer and cheaper, more women had access to the personal freedom they embodied, and so the bicycle came to symbolise the
In 1895
The backlash against the New (bicycling) Woman was demonstrated when the male undergraduates of
Since women could not cycle in the then-current fashions for voluminous and restrictive dress, the
See also
- History of the bicycle
- Pope Manufacturing Company
- List of doping cases in cycling
- List of professional cyclists who died during a race
- Cyclability
References
- ^ Bicycle
- ^ "Bicycles produced in the world — Worldometers". Retrieved 2 January 2012.
- ISBN 1-874739-37-4
- ^ "memoire-du-cyclisme.net". Archived from the original on 4 March 2012. Retrieved 23 July 2015.
- ^ "cycling – sport". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 23 July 2015.
- ^ "100 Years of cycle path building". Bicycle Dutch. 12 March 2014. Retrieved 2015-06-03.
- ^ "Bike to Work :: About". biketoworkinfo.org. Archived from the original on 23 July 2015. Retrieved 23 July 2015.
- ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2012-07-11. Retrieved 2012-11-05.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) - ISBN 978-0-8065-2851-9.
- ISBN 978-8174366184.
Travelling 44,000 miles, at times in 140'F heat - for days without food, at times without water, at times in pirate-infested territories, at times in swamp-lands - they cycled through dense jungles and notched up many 'firsts' while pedalling round the globe. They were the first to cycle the world – six young boys from Bombay Weightlifting Club, who started this journey of adventure on 15 October 1923. Crossing the deserts of Persia, Mesopotamia, Syria and Sinai, they became the first globetrotters to cover the most arduous journey of their lives in four years and five months. A must-read story of adventure and endurance.
- ^ https://www.nshss.org/media/1455/postolowski.pdf [bare URL PDF]
- ^ a b Roberts, Jacob (2017). "Women's work". Distillations. 3 (1): 6–11. Retrieved 22 March 2018.
- ^ Norcliffe, Glen. The Ride to Modernity: The Bicycle in Canada, 1869–1900 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001), p.107.
- G.N. GeorganoCars: Early and Vintage, 1886–1930. (London: Grange-Universal, 1985)
- ^ Bicycling, November 2006, p.78.
- ^ Willard, Frances. Glimpses of fifty years: the autobiography of an American woman. (Woman's Temperance Publication Association, 1889 p.231.
- ^ Pennell, Elizabeth. Over the Alps on Bicycle (1898)., p. 16.
- ^ Newnham College Cambridge: The History of the College
Further reading
- Horner, Craig. The Emergence of Bicycling and Automobility in Britain (Bloomsbury Academic, 2021) online review