The Tour de France is on. Once upon a time, cycling was both revolutionary (pun intended!) and romantic. Want to know how? Don your knickerbockers and we’ll pedal off into cycling history.
The Cycling Craze
Cycling was a fashionable sport from the moment bicycles hit the streets in the nineteenth century. Maybe you’ve read Australian poet Banjo Patterson:
'Twas Mulga Bill, from Eaglehawk, that caught the cycling craze;
He turned away the good old horse that served him many days;
He dressed himself in cycling clothes, resplendent to be seen;
He hurried off to town and bought a shining new machine;
And as he wheeled it through the door, with air of lordly pride,
The grinning shop assistant said, "Excuse me, can you ride?"
No doubt you can tell what the answer is going to be. The rest of Bill’s wild ride is easily found on the internet, including here.
Not just for Toddlers - the Royal Tricycle
Women took to cycling as well as men, but not on the alarming penny farthings. The heroine of my current novel — set in 1888 — is a determined young woman who rides a tricycle. Tricycles were celebrity-endorsed. Queen Victoria had one, as did her daughter Princess Beatrice.
The Scientific American said in 1888 that there was ‘scarcely a large town in the land where there are not some ladies who use the tricycle as others do their horse and carriage.’1
The giant trikes look quaint to us, but for Victorian women, they were empowering. An 1885 Sydney newspaper quoted a female cyclist:
The tricycle is the horse of the future… I believe it will bring for ladies the dress of the future — the divided skirt. Let every feeble, nervous woman try it, and she will soon find her limbs rotund, cheeks ruddy, and steps elastic. 2
Getting the Gear
She was right about ‘the dress of the future’. Cycling outfits were around long before lycra, although not in the 1880s. My main character gets around in full-length skirts like the woman in the ad above.
However, by the 1890s, the ‘safety bicycle’ had been invented. Full skirts just didn’t work. Women adapted their dress, to these rather fulsome, piratical pants:
Famous US suffragette Susan B Anthony said in 1896:
Bicycling has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world.
Tour de Romance
Good on those intrepid ladies, you might think, but that’s not exactly romantic.
Well, recently, I was thinking of ways to get my fictional lovers out of the drawing room — even Jane Austen took her couples on walks and carriage rides. A song floated into my head (linked just below):
I wondered, were there such things as bicycles built for two in the 1880s? Yes!
Behold the ‘sociable’:
I enjoyed writing that scene almost as much as my characters enjoyed being in it. The book is not over yet. There are plenty of punctures on the path of true love, but they will keep for now.
From My Bookshelf
I only remember one novel I’ve read that fits the cycling theme. Little Brother by Australian author Alan Baillie is a story about two brothers who get separated in Pol Pot’s Cambodia. I won’t give the story away, but I’ve never forgotten the bicycle bit. Because the book is for kids, it’s short, moving and not as bleak as some.
Time to hop down from the saddle. Wishing you, dear reader, ruddy cheeks, elastic steps, and even romantic rendezvous. But not ‘rotund limbs’, as they are out of fashion! ;)