I published a fun photograph on Twitter/X a few days ago of a bunch of kids’ bikes parked in my granddaughter’s yard… and made the joke that we had purchased our 4 year old granddaughter a bike and within a day or two she was apparently in a neighborhood gang… it apparently struck a nerve…
In this iteration, it had reached 129,000 views….
Why? ONE Word… OK…TWO
Within the day it went to half a million, then a million, then 2…3…4… and then finally 5 million+ views… 1700+ people reposted the image – often with a remembrance of their own childhood…
What makes an image like that so popular? ONE WORD…
It’s mostly little girls who were riding that day around granddaughter’s neighborhood and when they stopped at her house they lined up the bikes in the grass and my step-daughter got the shot. This image seemed to really resonate with WOMEN, who found it to be invigorating, empowering and pleasantly nostalgic.
The nostalgic feelings that this image provokes take us back to a simpler time- when WE were kids, riding around with our friends. When we could ride without fear – when we could MOVE OURSELVES around without Mom or Dad driving us… Moving yourself around is VERY powerful… it seems essential to life – just ask any 90 year old who is being asked to give up their car keys…
What is it about the bike that evokes such powerful feelings? ONE WORD… OK, TWO Words
The “Bicycle” was invented back in ’19… like 1719… by a German, Baron Karl von Drain. It looked… sort of… like a bike… 2 wheels – frame – seat… but you sat on it and moved it with your feet… More of a hobby horse than what we think of as a bicycle.
In my BikeLaw 101 presentations I joke that you had to be “well heeled” to have one – both rich and blessed with good shoes, which acted as your brakes!
Sort of the Fred Flintstone approach to cycling…
Cycling didn’t exactly take off in the 1700s, or even into the 1800s, despite many efforts at many different types of designs and contraptions for moving folks around.
There must have been something in the water though… people kept inventing and trying to develop ways of moving around that DIDN’T involve a 4-legged beast that had to be fed and watered and kept in a separate building and…well… cleaned up after…
Why? ONE WORD…OK… TWO WORDS
The high wheeling “Pennyfarthings” came along – a BIG wheel in the front with a small one in the back… with pedals attached to the big front wheel. Big wheel bikes were enjoyed for a time- mostly by men in the mid-1800s. These bikes were fast. The large front wheel offered a single large direct drive “gear.” All bikes were “direct drive” at that point and one’s feet on the pedals would rotate at the same speed as the wheel. Smaller wheels rotated more often as speeds increased…which made keeping your feet on the pedals a LOT more difficult. The large front wheel provided the big gear so that once you got moving, you could move faster without spinning the pedals like a madman.
These bikes had their faults of course… they were difficult to ride – or even to get up on. Definitely a steep learning curve, as Mark Twain famously wrote about during the 1880s in his essay called “Taming The Bicycle.”
Often these bikes had wheels up to 60″ but Twain wrote that his new bike “…was not a full-grown bicycle, but only a colt–a fifty-inch, with the pedals shortened up to forty-eight–and skittish, like any other colt…” Twain’s essay is a good, solid, fun read about how his “Expert” trainer ended up always managing to cushion his fall from the bike as he tried to learn to ride and dismount. [“Five days later I got out and was carried down to the hospital, and found the Expert doing pretty fairly. In a few more days I was quite sound. I attribute this to my prudence in always dismounting on something soft. Some recommend a feather bed, but I think an Expert is better.“]
Soon, though, a major breakthrough in Bicycle Technology came around – the development of a rear wheel drive using a chain. This was initiated in 1879 and by 1885 the new “Safety Bicycle” really started to look like what WE would call a bike… two wheels of equal size, with a rear wheel connected by a chain. This Safety Bicycle went VIRAL – it took over the WORLD very quickly…. the Safety Bike became the THING that everyone had to have – the Bike went on to dominate physical activities, transportation but also society, music, politics, fashion and more!
Why? ONE WORD…
Fashion, indeed. WOMEN flocked to the new safety bike.
Why? ONE WORD… Er…. OK… TWO Words
Remember this was coming along towards the end of the Victorian Era… women were deemed too dainty to engage in such physical feats… also, women were SMART and saw the dangers of the Big Wheel bikes which had men flopping onto their heads with regularity.
Why? ONE…er…no TWO WORDS…
The Bike opened up society – people could MOVE themselves around easier – Roads needed improvement, and the Good Roads Movement came along. The Bike dominated…
Why? ONE WORD…no no TWO Words
People got photographed with their bikes back in the 1890s…
Why? One – TWO words…
Kids got on bikes back in the 1800s and…just never stopped riding!
Why? One Word… OK, OK… TWO
Just What IS that ONE Word…
Yes, the Bike was FUN… you got on and you MOVED… but wait… it was MORE than simply Fun…
Now WHAT IS THAT OTHER WORD?
FREEDOM!
As Granddaughter learned last week – the Bike gives you FREEDOM with your side of FUN…She learned the same lesson that our grandson learned a few years ago when He got HIS bike up and riding around the neighborhood…
just like my boys did 30 years ago and how I did over 60 years ago when Dad gave me a shove and off I went down Mohican Drive in Cleveland, OH… a solid 50 foot 1st ride before careening into a tree! [Mohican today with Tree drawn in for reference…]
Those rushing gooey emotions and adrenaline and dopamine hits from your very first ride are VERY powerful… You are ON YOUR OWN…You’re moving around – riding with your friends – these crazy feelings of FREEDOM are fantastic & they last a lifetime …
For WOMEN, especially back in the late 1800s, that concept of FREEDOM was critical… Women were often viewed as frail… dainty… of needing the help of a man, or men in general, just to get around safely… the BIKE blew through that tart concept like a Cat 5 Hurricane!
From Susan B. Anthony to Katherine Wright [yes, of THOSE Wrights] to Annie Oakley to Marie Curie to Kitty Knox to Belva Lockwood, women viewed the BIKE as something that could CHANGE THE WORLD… get them on the road and out of the binds that tied them to their “role” in the Victorian world…
Can you spot the famous WRIGHT in this one?
I am very glad that a simple photo of those kids’ bikes lined up in the neighborhood just brought some 5,000,000+ viewers a small modicum of joy and fun memories as well as a bit of EMPOWERMENT this week…
© 2024.
