Any good readings on biking for transportation in the old days?

Anyone know of any good articles or books on the use of bicycles to get around, before cars arrived or were affordable to the masses? Just curious about this history when bikes were so widely used in Victorian times to get to work, cross cities, reach towns. Love to know about the early bikes, any headaches riding them, the quality of the roads, how they dealt with sweaty or wet clothes, how they carried stuff, what fixing skills they had, where they parked them, theft rates, accident rates, and any other tidbits of interest. Any references you recommend?

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Permalink Reply by Geoff Hoffman on July 22, 2016 at 9:25am

I recommend Bike Battles. It has a good overview of the history of bikes and there use...

http://bikebattles.net/about-the-book/

Permalink Reply by SlowCoachOnTheRoad on July 22, 2016 at 10:28am
Book looks very interesting. Thanks so much. Just found a hardback copy on Amazon. Obviously it just came out.... looking forward to it. I need more light summer reading but I promise not to read and drive
Permalink Reply by Tom A.K. on July 22, 2016 at 2:55pm
https://youtu.be/yIq0LusEm8s

How about a short historical video from the Chicago Park District called, 'Biking in Chicago - Then and Now'.
Duration 2:16
Permalink Reply by John Greenfield on July 25, 2016 at 3:30am

An acquaintance of mine just put out this book, which looks really informative and readable: http://utpress.utexas.edu/index.php/books/guroff-mechanical-horse

Permalink Reply by Gene Tenner on July 25, 2016 at 8:28am
The forgotten history of how automakers invented the crime of "jaywalking"
Posted by Bob Kastigar on January 15, 2015 at 3:13pm in General Discussion (not bike related)
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100 years ago, if you were a pedestrian, crossing the street was simple: you walked across it.
Today, if there's traffic in the area and you want to follow the law, you need to find a crosswalk. And if there's a traffic light, you need to wait for it to change to green.
Fail to do so, and you're committing a crime: jaywalking. In some cities — Los Angeles, for instance — police ticket tens of thousands of pedestrians annually for jaywalking, with fines of up to $250.
To most people, this seems part of the basic nature of roads. But it's actually the result of an aggressive, forgotten 1920s campaign led by auto groups and manufacturers that redefined who owned the city street.
"In the early days of the automobile, it was drivers' job to avoid you, not your job to avoid them," says Peter Norton, a historian at the University of Virginia and author of Fighting Traffic: The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City. "But under the new model, streets became a place for cars — and as a pedestrian, it's your fault if you get hit."
One of the keys to this shift was the creation of the crime of jaywalking. Here's a history of how that happened.
The forgotten history of how automakers invented the crime of "jaywalking"
Permalink Reply by Michelle S on July 26, 2016 at 2:54am

I really enjoyed "In the City of Bikes" when I read it a few years ago. It's mostly about Amsterdam and the Netherlands, but provides great historical context and anecdotes, so I think it would be of interest to anyone who likes transportation bicycling, even if you've never been to that area.

Permalink Reply by SlowCoachOnTheRoad on August 1, 2016 at 12:33pm
Thanks Michelle!!!!
Permalink Reply by Tricolor on July 26, 2016 at 11:21am
Permalink Reply by Nancy L. Fagin on August 4, 2016 at 8:58am

How about Smith, Robert A. A Social History of the Bicycle. McGraw-Hill/American Heritage Press?

Or somewhat related The Horse in the City = apparently many warehouse buildings were high rise stables with elevators for the horses...

Also a wonderful article, early years of MS. Magazine about women and liberation through the bicycle.  Don't know the issue number.  

One more, The Bicycle, The Bloomer and Dress reform in the 1890s (Sally Sims in Dress and Popular Culture....)

Nancy L. Fagin

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