Question: When did the British Royal Mail start using bicycles?
About the article "Cycling", section "Utility".

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Royal Mail is famous for its custom load-carrying bicycles (with the rack and basket built into the frame), made by Pashley Cycles since 1971.
Since 2000, old delivery bicycles have been shipped to Africa by the charity Re~Cycle; over 8,000 had been donated by 2004.
In 2009, Royal Mail announced it was beginning to phase out bicycle deliveries, to be replaced with more push-trolleys and vans.
A spokesman said that they would continue to use bicycles on some rural routes, and that there was no plan to phase out bicycles completely.
In addition to running a large number of road vehicles, Royal Mail uses trains, a ship and some aircraft, with an air hub at East Midlands Airport.
Dedicated night mail flights are operated by Titan Airways for Royal Mail between East Midlands Airport and Bournemouth Airport and between Exeter International Airport and London Stansted Airport.
One Boeing 737-3Y0 is flown in full Royal Mail livery.
In June 2013, Royal Mail confirmed it would extend Titan Airways' contract to operate night flights from Stansted Airport, from January 2014 to January 2017, introducing new routes to Edinburgh and Belfast using three Boeing 737s.
The new contract called for the replacement of the British Aerospace 146-200QC (Quick Change) aircraft in favour of a standard Boeing 737 fleet, and the type was withdrawn by Titan Airways in November 2013.
The RMS "St. Helena" is a cargo and passenger ship that serves the British overseas territory of Saint Helena.
It sails between Cape Town, Saint Helena and Ascension Island.
It is the last dedicated Royal Mail Ship in service.
Royal Mail operated the London Post Office Railway, a network of driverless trains running on a private underground track, from 1927 until it closed it in 2003. 
After the privatisation of British Rail in the mid 1990s, British TPOs were operated by Rail Express Systems and their successor EWS.
Royal Mail decided to suspend all transportation of mail by rail in 2003.
The last TPO services went out on the night of 9 January 2004, ending the sorting of mail on trains in the UK.
However, Royal Mail did restore the movement of some already-sorted letters by rail in time for the Christmas season that year, contracting with EWS's competitor GB Railfreight to resume bulk transfer services along the West Coast Main Line between its mail terminals at London (Willesden), Warrington and Glasgow (Sheildmuir) using the dedicated Class 325 electric multiple units that had been in operation since 1996.
In 2009 the contract for these mail trains was transferred to EWS's successor DB Schenker Rail.
For flexibility Royal Mail has preserved rail access to its distribution centres on Tyneside (Low Fell) and at Tonbridge in Kent, and does occasionally send mail trains to Low Fell, for example when Newcastle Airport was closed by snow. 
Utility cycling refers both to cycling as a mode of daily commuting transport as well as the use of a bicycle in a commercial activity, mainly to transport goods, mostly accomplished in an urban environment.
The postal services of many countries have long relied on bicycles.
The British Royal Mail first started using bicycles in 1880; now bicycle delivery fleets include 37,000 in the UK, 25,700 in Germany, 10,500 in Hungary and 7000 in Sweden.
The London Ambulance Service has recently introduced bicycling paramedics, who can often get to the scene of an incident in Central London more quickly than a motorized ambulance.
Late in the 20th century, urban police bicycles became more common, as the mobility of car-borne officers was increasingly limited by traffic congestion and pedestrianisation.
Bicycles enjoy substantial use as general delivery vehicles in many countries.
In the UK and North America, as their first jobs, generations of teenagers have worked at delivering newspapers by bicycle.
London has many delivery companies that use bicycles with trailers.
Most cities in the West, and many outside it, support a sizeable and visible industry of cycle couriers who deliver documents and small packages.
In India, many of Mumbai's Dabbawalas use bicycles to deliver home cooked lunches to the city’s workers.
In Bogotá, Colombia the city’s largest bakery recently replaced most of its delivery trucks with bicycles.
Even the car industry uses bicycles.
At the huge Mercedes-Benz factory in Sindelfingen, Germany workers use bicycles, color-coded by department, to move around the factory.
Royal Mail Ship (sometimes Steam-ship or Steamer), usually seen in its abbreviated form RMS, a designation which dates back to 1840, is the ship prefix used for seagoing vessels that carry mail under contract to the British Royal Mail.
Any vessel designated as "RMS" has the right both to fly the pennant of the Royal Mail when sailing and to include the Royal Mail "crown" logo with any identifying device and/or design for the ship.
While some lines in the past, particularly the Royal Mail Lines, called all their ships "RMS", technically a ship would use the prefix only while contracted to carry mail, and would revert at other times to a standard designation such as "SS". 
After World War II, Raleigh became known for its lightweight "sports roadster" bicycles, often using Sturmey-Archer three and five-speed transmissions.
These cycles were considerably lighter and quicker than either the old heavy English utility roadster or the American "balloon-tire" cruiser bikes.
In 1946, Raleigh and other English bicycle manufacturers accounted for 95% of the bicycles imported into the United States.
Raleigh's "sports roadster", or "British racer" bicycles were exported around the world, including the United States.
The company continued to increase imports to the United States until 1955, when a rate increase in foreign bicycle tariffs caused a shift in imports in favour of bicycles from West Germany and the Netherlands.
However, this proved only a temporary setback, and by 1964, Raleigh was again a major selling brand in the US bicycle market.