The introduction of Bicycling to the general public brought changes to the social and economic fabric of America to such an extent that the bicycle was the herald of the 20 th Century. The bicycle led to the emancipation of women by freeing them from the outrageously restrictive fashions imposed on them, by enabling them to travel safely and efficiently beyond the extremely narrow precincts to which they had been virtually confined. It enabled them to more easily meet, form associations, and express their individual and collective opinions. Bicycling created profound changes in the economic order just as it changed the social order. Many point to internal combustion, as much a villain as a hero, as the great engine of change.
Internal combustion is merely a conversion of energy.
It was the bicycle that inspired people to believe that simple, effective personal transport is possible. It was bicycling that energized people to form the Good Roads movement, the political force that eventually made America the most powerful and wealthy society in the history of the earth. Yes, thanks to bicycling we are powerful and wealthy. But the century that has intervened between Colonel Pope s day and ours was not always kind to bicyclists. Throughout the 20 th Century, we as a society lost interest in the benefits cycling provides beyond its basic use of travel from point to point.