Lady Cycling

Lady Cycling
Author: F. J. Erskine
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2014
Genre: Bicycles
ISBN: 9780712357272

The late Victorian era was the early heyday of the bicycle, as the introduction of the safety bicycle brought cycling within reach of a whole new audience—including women. Fortunately for the daring lady cyclist of the 1890s, it wasn’t long before guidebooks appeared to tell her just how to set out upon this newfangled adventure. Lady Cycling presents one such book in all its humor and charm. First published in 1897, its quirky pleasures range from amusing anachronisms (“The initial cost of a machine is certainly almost as high as that of a pony”) to advice that can still help beginning cyclists today (“If nervous, or it is a bad crossing, like Regent Circus or by the Marble Arch, it is wisest, if not most dignified, to jump off”). We may have settled the question of whether cycling is an appropriate activity for ladies—to say nothing of the question of whether the corset should be shed for biking—but Lady Cycling nonetheless still offers plenty of entertainment and advice for the modern rider.

A Lady Cyclist's Guide to Kashgar

A Lady Cyclist's Guide to Kashgar
Author: Suzanne Joinson
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 386
Release: 2013-01-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1408830914

It is 1923 and Evangeline English, keen lady cyclist, arrives with her sister Lizzie and their zealous leader Millicent at the ancient city of Kashgar to establish a mission. As they encounter resistance and calamity, Eva commences work on her Lady Cyclist's Guide to Kashgar...In present-day London, Frieda opens her door to find a man sleeping on the landing. Tayeb, a Yemeni refugee, has arrived in Frieda's life just as she learns that she is next-of-kin to a stranger, a woman whose abandoned flat contains many surprises. The two wanderers embark on a journey that is as great, and as unexpected, as Eva's.

The Bicycling Big Book of Cycling for Women

The Bicycling Big Book of Cycling for Women
Author: Selene Yeager
Publisher: Rodale
Total Pages: 322
Release: 2015-09-15
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 1623364868

Women are built differently, ride differently, train differently, burn different macronutrients as fuel, and have a different relationship with their bikes than men do. It's only natural they should need their own comprehensive cycling book. The Bicycling Big Book of Cycling for Women is an instructional manual geared specifically toward women. It breaks down the sport of cycling into easily digestible sections, beginning with the history of women's cycling and progressing into equipment, lifestyle, technique, training, and fitness goals. The book also includes a women-specific section that covers cycling while menstruating, cycling while pregnant, how menopause affects training, and how specific parts of the female body are uniquely affected by cycling. The Bicycling Big Book of Cycling for Women will serve as an indispensible, lifelong guide for every female cyclist.

Roads Were Not Built for Cars

Roads Were Not Built for Cars
Author: Carlton Reid
Publisher: Island Press
Total Pages: 374
Release: 2015-04-09
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 1610916891

In Roads Were Not Built for Cars, Carlton Reid reveals the pivotal—and largely unrecognized—role that bicyclists played in the development of modern roadways. Reid introduces readers to cycling personalities, such as Henry Ford, and the cycling advocacy groups that influenced early road improvements, literally paving the way for the motor car. When the bicycle morphed from the vehicle of rich transport progressives in the 1890s to the “poor man’s transport” in the 1920s, some cyclists became ardent motorists and were all too happy to forget their cycling roots. But, Reid explains, many motor pioneers continued cycling, celebrating the shared links between transport modes that are now seen as worlds apart. In this engaging and meticulously researched book, Carlton Reid encourages us all to celebrate those links once again.

Bikes and Bloomers

Bikes and Bloomers
Author: Kat Jungnickel
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2020-02-25
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 1912685434

An illustrated history of the evolution of British women's cycle wear. The bicycle in Victorian Britain is often celebrated as a vehicle of women's liberation. Less noted is another critical technology with which women forged new and mobile public lives—cycle wear. This illustrated account of women's cycle wear from Goldsmiths Press brings together Victorian engineering and radical feminist invention to supply a missing chapter in the history of feminism. Despite its benefits, cycling was a material and ideological minefield for women. Conventional fashions were unworkable, with skirts catching in wheels and tangling in pedals. Yet wearing “rational” cycle wear could provoke verbal and sometimes physical abuse from those threatened by newly mobile women. Seeking a solution, pioneering women not only imagined, made, and wore radical new forms of cycle wear but also patented their inventive designs. The most remarkable of these were convertible costumes that enabled wearers to transform ordinary clothing into cycle wear. Drawing on in-depth archival research and inventive practice, Kat Jungnickel brings to life in rich detail the little-known stories of six inventors of the 1890s. Alice Bygrave, a dressmaker of Brixton, registered four patents for a skirt with a dual pulley system built into its seams. Julia Gill, a court dressmaker of Haverstock Hill, patented a skirt that drew material up the waist using a mechanism of rings or eyelets. Mary and Sarah Pease, sisters from York, patented a skirt that could be quickly converted into a fashionable high-collar cape. Henrietta Müller, a women's rights activist of Maidenhead, patented a three-part cycling suit with a concealed system of loops and buttons to elevate the skirt. And Mary Ann Ward, a gentlewoman of Bristol, patented the “Hyde Park Safety Skirt,” which gathered fabric at intervals using a series of side buttons on the skirt. Their unique contributions to cycling's past continue to shape urban life for contemporary mobile women.

Women on the Move

Women on the Move
Author: Roger Gilles
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
Total Pages: 412
Release: 2018-10
Genre: History
ISBN: 1496210417

The 1890s was the peak of the American bicycle craze, and consumers, including women, were buying bicycles in large numbers. Despite critics who tried to discourage women from trying this new sport, women took to the bike in huge numbers, and mastery of the bicycle became a metaphor for women's mastery over their lives. Spurred by the emergence of the "safety" bicycle and the ensuing cultural craze, women's professional bicycle racing thrived in the United States from 1895 to 1902. For seven years, female racers drew large and enthusiastic crowds across the country, including Cleveland, Detroit, Indianapolis, Chicago, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Kansas City, and New Orleans--and many smaller cities in between. Unlike the trudging, round-the-clock marathons the men (and their spectators) endured, women's six-day races were tightly scheduled, fast-paced, and highly competitive. The best female racers of the era--Tillie Anderson, Lizzie Glaw, and Dottie Farnsworth--became household names and were America's first great women athletes. Despite concerted efforts by the League of American Wheelmen to marginalize the sport and by reporters and other critics to belittle and objectify the women, these athletes forced turn-of-the-century America to rethink strongly held convictions about female frailty and competitive spirit. By 1900 many cities began to ban the men's six-day races, and it became more difficult to ensure competitive women's races and attract large enough crowds. In 1902 two racers died, and the sport's seven-year run was finished--and it has been almost entirely ignored in sports history, women's history, and even bicycling history. Women on the Move tells the full story of America's most popular arena sport during the 1890s, giving these pioneering athletes the place they deserve in history.

Wheels of Change

Wheels of Change
Author: Sue Macy
Publisher: National Geographic Books
Total Pages: 100
Release: 2017-02-07
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 1426328559

Explore the role the bicycle played in the women's liberation movement.

Motor-cycling for Women 1928

Motor-cycling for Women 1928
Author: Nancy Debenham
Publisher: Steve Brown
Total Pages: 117
Release: 1928
Genre: Transportation
ISBN: 1908890045

Betty and Nancy Debenham were a pair of young adventurous lady motorcyclists who entered trials competitions on equal terms with men in the 1920's. Although they were serious motorcyclists they never let this get in the way of their tremendous sense of fun. Their spirit shines through in 'Motor Cycling for Women'. A practical and yet at times eccentric and quirky book from a bye-gone era that will make you smile.

Bicycling with Butterflies

Bicycling with Butterflies
Author: Sara Dykman
Publisher: Timber Press
Total Pages: 281
Release: 2021-04-13
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 1643260456

“What a wonderful idea for an adventure! Absolutely inspired, timely, and important.” —Alistair Humphreys, National Geographic Adventurer of the Year and author of The Doorstep Mile and Around the World by Bike Outdoor educator and field researcher Sara Dykman made history when she became the first person to bicycle along­side monarch butterflies on their storied annual migration—a round-trip adventure that included three countries and more than 10,000 miles. Equally remarkable, she did it solo, on a bike cobbled together from used parts. Her panniers were recycled buckets. In Bicycling with Butterflies, Dykman recounts her incredible journey and the dramatic ups and downs of the nearly nine-month odyssey. We’re beside her as she nav­igates unmapped roads in foreign countries, checks roadside milkweed for monarch eggs, and shares her passion with eager schoolchil­dren, skeptical bar patrons, and unimpressed border officials. We also meet some of the ardent monarch stewards who supported her efforts, from citizen scientists and research­ers to farmers and high-rise city dwellers. With both humor and humility, Dykman offers a compelling story, confirming the urgency of saving the threatened monarch migration—and the other threatened systems of nature that affect the survival of us all.

Women on Wheels

Women on Wheels
Author: April Streeter
Publisher: Microcosm Publishing
Total Pages: 153
Release: 2021-04-13
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 1621069745

A feminist history of bicycling for sport and adventure spans a century of women who changed the world from two wheels. This vivacious tale, peppered with fascinating details from primary sources, shows how women were sometimes the stars of bicycle races and exhibitions, and other times had to overcome sexism, exclusion, and economic inequalities in order to ride. From the almost burlesque show races and creative performances of the 19th century to the evolution of cycling as a modern sport and form of transportation, April Streeter brings her exuberant eye for character, fashion, and story to convey the evolving emotional resonance of bicycling for women and their communities. Interweaving pedal-powered history with profiles of bicyclists who made their mark, like Katharine Hepburn, Annie Londonderry, Kittie Knox, Dorothy Lawrence, Louise Armaindo, and more.