Bicycles: getting a handle on technology

The 1890s was known as the decade of the bicycle. Once prices became reasonable for most people (under $100 for a good bike), a social revolution occurred. Doctors and lawyers became indistinguishable from shopkeepers and tradesmen when they were all riding in uniform with their bicycle clubs. Young people found themselves able to pedal beyond their own neighborhoods, and a generation of women traded in their corsets for bloomers to make for easier riding. Bicycle progress continued, and the improvements that transformed the high-wheeled contraptions of the past to the sleek, comfortable designs of today make the bicycle a vehicle of continued technology.

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Content - The Franklin Institute Online "Inquiry Attic" (June/July '99)

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