You could not possible make this shit up
Jul. 1st, 2009 09:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
walkitoutFrom _Cycling and Society_, by three men who I will not bother to name here, page 49:
"Its [the safety bicycle] popularity for women peaked around 1896-7 once the drop-frame design was fitted with pneumatic rather than solid rubber tyres; this peak period of popularity is commonly referred to in the cycling literature as 'the bicycle boom'"
Given what a small percentage of women had bikes at that point, and what a large percentage of women had bikes fifty some odd years later, calling this a peak seems a little odd. If you consider racism and classism odd. Maybe they meant "Society", like, only the uppers need be considered.
Footnote 7 is really precious:
"Much elsewhere has been written about the impact of the bicycle on the position of women in society; to recapitulate here would detract from the focus on racing."
Pretty much captures what I'm complaining about, hunh?
ETA: Lest you think the book is about racing in particular, here's the overview:
"How can the social sciences help us to understand the past, present and potential futures of cycling? This timely international and interdisciplinary collection addresses this question, discussing shifts in cycling practices and attitudes, and opening up important critical spaces for thinking about the prospects for cycling. The book brings together, for the first time, analyses of cycling from a wide range of disciplinary backgrounds, including history, sociology, geography, planning, engineering and technology. The book redresses the past neglect of cycling as a topic for sustained analysis by treating it as a varied and complex practice which matters greatly to contemporary social, cultural and political theory and action. Cycling and Society demonstrates the incredible diversity of contemporary cycling, both within and across cultures. With cycling increasingly promoted as a solution to numerous social problems across a wide range of policy areas in car-dominated societies, this book helps to open up a new field of cycling studies"
Really makes me want to track down Rosen, Cox and Horton and do Very Bad Things.
To be fair, the stuff about safety bicycle and the bike boom was in a section on cycle racing. But that sort of begs the question. _WHY_ bury it there, given the stated scope of the book? I can't tell from the "limited preview" and I don't like these people enough to buy it (I did just buy a couple other books that looked promising, so it's not like I'm opposed to buying these things).
"Its [the safety bicycle] popularity for women peaked around 1896-7 once the drop-frame design was fitted with pneumatic rather than solid rubber tyres; this peak period of popularity is commonly referred to in the cycling literature as 'the bicycle boom'"
Given what a small percentage of women had bikes at that point, and what a large percentage of women had bikes fifty some odd years later, calling this a peak seems a little odd. If you consider racism and classism odd. Maybe they meant "Society", like, only the uppers need be considered.
Footnote 7 is really precious:
"Much elsewhere has been written about the impact of the bicycle on the position of women in society; to recapitulate here would detract from the focus on racing."
Pretty much captures what I'm complaining about, hunh?
ETA: Lest you think the book is about racing in particular, here's the overview:
"How can the social sciences help us to understand the past, present and potential futures of cycling? This timely international and interdisciplinary collection addresses this question, discussing shifts in cycling practices and attitudes, and opening up important critical spaces for thinking about the prospects for cycling. The book brings together, for the first time, analyses of cycling from a wide range of disciplinary backgrounds, including history, sociology, geography, planning, engineering and technology. The book redresses the past neglect of cycling as a topic for sustained analysis by treating it as a varied and complex practice which matters greatly to contemporary social, cultural and political theory and action. Cycling and Society demonstrates the incredible diversity of contemporary cycling, both within and across cultures. With cycling increasingly promoted as a solution to numerous social problems across a wide range of policy areas in car-dominated societies, this book helps to open up a new field of cycling studies"
Really makes me want to track down Rosen, Cox and Horton and do Very Bad Things.
To be fair, the stuff about safety bicycle and the bike boom was in a section on cycle racing. But that sort of begs the question. _WHY_ bury it there, given the stated scope of the book? I can't tell from the "limited preview" and I don't like these people enough to buy it (I did just buy a couple other books that looked promising, so it's not like I'm opposed to buying these things).
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no subject
Date: 2009-07-02 02:51 pm (UTC)have not read _Lark Rise..._
Date: 2009-07-02 04:50 pm (UTC)Lark Rise to Candleford p 492
"They were townsmen out for a lark...
"Soon, every man, youth and boy whose families were above the poverty line was riding a bicycle...
"At first only comparatively well-to-do women rode bicycles; but soon almost every one under forty was awheel, for those who could not afford to buy a bicycle could hire one for sixpence an hour"
An apt, detailed descriptive sequence in which rich young men in the cities first got the bicycle, then men, adolescent males and boys who [ETA: had] spending money, then women with money, and then virtually everyone in good enough shape with the inclination to ride. Those who couldn't afford to buy, rented. Unclear whether the financing definitely available in the city was available in the countryside.
No dates are supplied. The books were written quite a while after the fact, so while I'd love to use this, it's tough. But clearly there were still people in this time frame who could not afford to buy a bike then but would likely be able to afford one later.
I'm sticking to my assertion, until I see industry records showing a dip in number of bikes sold. I think what happened is that bikes got cheaper so possibly total sales dollar volume (quid volume?) dropped.
Thanks for the pointer, tho!