Women on Wheels - Riding the Freedom Machine

After reading and posting about the interview with 102 year old Jack Visco. A bike-racing pioneer still going strong although not on his bike. I got interested in the fact that the invention of the bicycle was of great importance to the women's movement in the late 19th and beginning of the 20th century.

Turning to Google i found this article by Nancy Botkin published in the online news service Tubular Times hosted on San Francisco Bicycle Coalition's site that digs deeper into the subject.

The appeal of the bicycle turned millions of women into rebels. In the 1890s, bicycle manufacturers discovered they could literally double their sales by marketing to women. Women's magazines contained images of bloomer-clad women hauling bicycles across streams, women coasting downhill with their feet up, and pages of fashions for the woman cyclist. Article after article appeared in women's magazines discussing the physical, spiritual, and societal benefits of bicycling.

go read...