Washington Post article - history of bicycles

Article in Kids' Post about the history of bicycles which is linked to a short item that there will be historic "ordinary" bikes being ridden on the Mall this Saturday.

An American (CA) Delegation Learns from the Dutch

Worldchanging: Bright Green: A Week of Biking Joyously: An American Delegation Learns from the Dutch - notes that it took the Dutch 35 years to build their present bicycle friendly infrastructure.

First "safety" bicycle

There were bicycles with wheels of approximately the same size before this - the main innovation of this bicycle was the use of chain drive to power the rear wheel rather than direct use of the front wheel with pedals on the front wheel's hub.

From the book published in 1945 (but in the public domain), Fifty years of Schwinn-built bicycles.

Cycling for Health and Pleasure

How to mount a bicycle as understood 115 years ago - I had never seen this approach. From the rear of the bike? Really?



Then there is this overly complex (given that it is intuitive) explanation of how to pedal a bike.

In the early days, even for a general audience there was detailed explanation of the mathematics of gearing -nowadays we probably err the other direction with too little.

There is the inevitable guidance on attire, for women in particular.



All from Cycling for Health and Pleasure, published in 1895.

Lynskey Performance Bike site

The Lynskey Performance Bike site is quite interesting stuff, if you like Titanium.

Article about biking with dogs in "Bark" magazine

The person who wrote this actually knows something about bicycles.

The Rider by Tim Krabbé

Krabbé's "The Rider" was only published in English (in the US, anyway) about 25 years after it was originally published in Dutch. This mostly a minute-by-minute tracking of a bike racer's thoughts, beginning to end, during a one-day bike racing event. At around 150 pages, you can fly through it but it is better to take one's time and enjoy it.