The first bicycles appeared in Europe in the late nineteenth century.

Cecil Vyse, Lucy Honeychurch’s dreadful fiancé in A Room with a View, despised bicycle riders as middle-class social climbers.

Cecil had been hesitating whether he should despise the villas or despise Sir Harry for despising them. The latter impulse seemed the more fruitful. “You ought to find a tenant at once,” he said maliciously. “It would be a perfect paradise for a bank clerk.”

“Exactly!” said Sir Harry excitedly. “That is exactly what I fear, Mr. Vyse. It will attract the wrong type of people. The train service has improved–a fatal improvement, to my mind. And what are five miles from a station in these days of bicycles?”

“Rather a strenuous clerk it would be,” said Lucy.

Cecil, who had his full share of mediaeval mischievousness, replied that the physique of the lower middle classes was improving at a most appalling rate.

Today, there are more than a billion bicycles in the world! Isn’t that an amazing thing? Here’s a little musical accompaniment from Melanie Safka for this post celebrating the humble bicycle.

Leon Georget Dec 2 1908 (LOC)

Boy on bicycle by C.M. Bell 1895 (LOC)

Man fell off bicycle. F.T. Harmon, 1897 (LOC)

Geraldine Luce with Ranger Bicycle she received in The Washington Times subscription contest, July 31, 1921 (LOC)

Times High bicycle 1920 (LOC)

Many bicycles. Photographed by Theodor Horydczak (LOC)

Presquilien 44 on Flickr

Miss M. Kearns with bicycle. Sept 16 1922 (LOC)