The bicycle revolutionized late Victorian and Edwardian society. Between the 1880s and the 1910s, it grew from an expensive fad for the upper classes, to a popular sport, to a marker of freedom for women, and finally, to an affordable mode of transportation for the middle and working classes. The more daring took the riding of the bicycle even further to amazing acrobatic feats atop two pneumatic tyres!
Fancy Cycling, published in 1901, chronicles some of the daring tricks that could be executed on a bicycle, and Shire Publications has rescued it from the recesses of time (and extreme expense–a first edition goes for $500!) in a reprint bound by cloth hardcover. Shire is also offering the readers of Edwardian Promenade the opportunity to win a copy of Fancy Cycling, 1901: An Edwardian Guide!
Just leave a comment about when you first learned to ride a bicycle and enter using the Rafflecopter widget.
I’m still learning! My boyfriend is an avid cyclist and insisted on trying to teach me when he realised that I’d never learnt as a child – definitely a late bloomer, but hopefully we’ll get there…
I was 5yrs and I had a green schwinn with a banana seat with a sissy bar on the back
We thought it was cool riding with no hands. Maybe we should have asked our grandmother for bicycle riding tricks. Hmm.
I learned to ride early maybe 4yrs old. In a house with 8 kids everyone was riding. I remember learning to do a wheelie and thought I was living on the edge. The thought of doing one now terrifies me!! Were I an Edwardian lady I would not do such tricks but would secretly love them!!
I believe I was 8 when I learned.
I was 4 years old and we lived in the city then. I got my bike for my birthday, red with streamers and training wheels of course!
I think I was 5 or 6 when I learned how to ride a bike? I definitely spent most of my childhood racing around the neighborhood.
I first learned to ride a bike when I was 6. I have an older brother and 2 younger brother’s. My father bought us a shiny red midget schwinn. It had a removable bar that converted it from a boys bike to a girls bike. We all got our turn learning to ride on that bike ! My grandson just learned to ride his shiny red bike 2 weeks ago!
I first learned to ride a bicycle when I was about 5 years old. I loved riding my bike and still do but obviously larger in size although I was always jealous of the fellow children who had the toy barbie cars that you could race around in. 🙂
I learned to ride when I was six. It gave me a great sense of freedom and I loved climbing up and coasting down hills. I live in Manhattan now, and it’s become a great city for cycling lately as we’ve added many bike lanes and now have a bicycle rental program.
My first bike, received at about age 7, not only taught me about balance and coordination, but non-magnetic attraction. In my early days of riding, it seemed nearly impossible for me to keep my new wheels from being ensnared by the force field of a a tree or bush bordering my intended path. If some very neat-minded neighbor had edged his sidewalk by cutting a narrow trench alongside the walkway, my front wheel was irresistably drawn to plunge into it. Fortunately, I survived and still enjoy a ride today.
I learnt to read a bike when I was ten and then again when I became a student!
I actually can’t ride a bike – but maybe I could learn if I won this book!