Peddling Bicycles to America

Peddling Bicycles to America
Author: Bruce D. Epperson
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 303
Release: 2014-01-10
Genre: Transportation
ISBN: 078645623X
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This economic and technical history of the early American bicycle industry focuses on the crucial period from 1876 to the beginning of World War I. It looks particularly at the life and career of the industry's most significant personality during this era, Albert Augustus Pope. After becoming enamored with English high-wheeled bicycles during a visit to the Philadelphia World's Fair in 1876, Pope soon started paying Hartford, Connecticut's Weed Sewing Machine Company to make his own brand of high-wheeler, the "Columbia," the first to be manufactured in America in significant numbers. A decade later, Pope bought out that company, and ten years after that, Hartford's Park River was lined with five of Pope's factories. This book tells the story of the Pope Manufacturing Company's meteoric rise and fall and the growth of an industry around it.

Just Keep Pedaling

Just Keep Pedaling
Author: Thomas E. Trimbath
Publisher: iUniverse
Total Pages: 322
Release: 2002-03-27
Genre: Bicycle touring
ISBN: 0595221009
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What started out as one person's bike ride to lose some weight became the story of a slice of America from the Pacific Northwest to the Florida Keys. There were big cities, rural towns and great stretches of open land. Heroes and villains are out there too, but mostly it's fine people living day-to-day and unknowingly impressing strangers. The weather wasn't left out either. From the first winter storm in the mountains of Washington through the tailwinds in Idaho to the heat and storms of the South, weather kept things from getting boring. Seeing America at ten miles an hour without the protective shell of a car allows all of the senses to get to know the country. It was an interesting ride with insights into culture and sore muscles. And then there was the awesome chocolate sundae in a ranch town in Utah This personal narrative also has an appendix that acts as a guide for others that might want to try their own adventure. There are details on gear, route selection, and expenses and most of all encouragement. You don't know what you'll find out there on the road until you get there.

An Alternative History of Bicycles and Motorcycles

An Alternative History of Bicycles and Motorcycles
Author: Steven E. Alford
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 201
Release: 2016-04-06
Genre: Transportation
ISBN: 1498528805
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An Alternative History of Bicycles and Motorcycles: Two-Wheeled Transportation and Material Culture accounts for the nineteenth-century creation and development of two-wheeled vehicles, both human-powered and motorized. Specifically, the book focuses on the period from 1885 (which saw the appearance, simultaneously, of the Safety bicycle and the Einspur, the first motorcycle) to 1920, while exploring implications for later bicycling and motorcycling. We argue that invention of these vehicles, rather than the product of gifted individuals, should be seen as the consequence of a number of historical, economic, cultural and political forces that intersect so unpredictably that the notion of a genius inventor is reductive. The common evolutionary model of development from the bicycle to the motorcycle oversimplifies both the technology and its origins. Stripping the vehicles of all their material and cultural associations, such a model fails to advance our understanding of the devices, their creators, and their riders. Taking a contemporary vehicle and tracing its lineage creates a false sense of evolutionary necessity in its creation, and fails to account for the many possible developmental paths that were, for whatever reason, abandoned. By contrast, our book adopts a material culture approach, a form of inquiry that stresses the connections between artifacts and social relations. We consider not simply the bicycle and motorcycle as material objects but focus also on the complex socio-political and economic convergences that produced the materials, materials that in turn themselves shaped the vehicles’ appearance, function, and adoption by riders.

Critical Geographies of Cycling

Critical Geographies of Cycling
Author: Glen Norcliffe
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 290
Release: 2016-03-09
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1317157362
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Examining cycling from a range of geographical perspectives, this book uses historical and contemporary case studies to look at the history, politics, economy and culture of cycling. Pursuing a post-structural position in viewing understandings of the bicycle as contingent upon time and place, author Glen Norcliffe argues for the need for widespread processes such as gendered use of the bicycle, the Cyclists’ Rights Movement, and the globalization of bicycle-making to be interpreted in different ways in different settings. With this in mind, the essays in the book are divided into two sections: relational aspects are examined as Spaces of Cycling which treats technological development, innovation, and the location of production and trade of cycles, while Places of Cycling interprets specific sites of consumption - the streets of the city, in the cycling clubs, among men and women, and at the trade show. Written from a geographer’s integrative perspective to offer a broad understanding of cycling, this book will also be of interest to other social scientists in urban studies, cultural studies, technology and society, sociology, history and environmental planning.

How to Bicycle Across America

How to Bicycle Across America
Author: Shane Hannan
Publisher: Page Publishing Inc
Total Pages: 149
Release: 2018-08-03
Genre: Travel
ISBN: 1642149306
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How to Bicycle Across America is a solo tour of the southern United States, over 2,800 miles from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean, taking 32 riding days to complete. The journey was broken into five stages over five years. Flying in and out of each start and finish point, then cycling five to seven days to complete a section ranging from 450 to 700 miles. The book is a “how-to-guide” that covers all the details - equipment used, training, maps and elevation charts. If you’ve had the urge to do a long distance bicycle tour or learn more about the southern United States, then come and take your time traveling the back roads through California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. Discover the uniqueness of each state, “tasting” the various local flavors while gaining a true appreciation for the country and people. Read how the ride became a focus on people, pain, and persistence. Experience the various challenges and the rewards along the way. Enjoy the funny stories and lighthearted entertainment from an Aussie’s perspective. Be inspired to maybe start your own adventure. Reviews: •What a terrific story! Your ride just has to make all of us couch potatoes, green with envy. – Dan (Cleveland, OH) •The excellent descriptions are making my mouth water for a ride of my own. – Ron (Scottsdale, AZ) •Entertaining, to the point, and I can picture being there as you’re describing things. – Linda (Pittsburgh, PA) •Great reading!! Would love to do the same . . . Very motivating. – Robert (Austin, TX) •Succinct and witty observational humor. – Joe (London, UK) Shane was born in Australia and moved to the United States in 1997.He met his wife in Canada snow skiing and they have two grown children. Shane has worked in the technology industry for a number of years and owns a software company based in Scottsdale, Arizona.

The Cycling City

The Cycling City
Author: Evan Friss
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 280
Release: 2021-01-29
Genre: History
ISBN: 022675880X
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As Evan Friss shows in his mordant history of urban bicycling in the late nineteenth century, the bicycle has long told us much about cities and their residents. In a time when American cities were chaotic, polluted, and socially and culturally impenetrable, the bicycle inspired a vision of an improved city in which pollution was negligible, transport was noiseless and rapid, leisure spaces were democratic, and the divisions between city and country blurred. Friss focuses not on the technology of the bicycle but on the urbanisms that bicycling engendered. Bicycles altered the look and feel of cities and their streets, enhanced mobility, fueled leisure and recreation, promoted good health, and shrank urban spaces as part of a larger transformation that altered the city and the lives of its inhabitants, even as the bicycle's own popularity fell, not to rise again for a century. --Publisher's description.

First Taste of Freedom

First Taste of Freedom
Author: Robert Turpin
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
Total Pages: 306
Release: 2018-06-25
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 0815654391
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The bicycle has long been a part of American culture but few would describe it as an essential element of American identity in the same way that it is fundamental to European and Asian cultures. Instead, American culture has had a more turbulent relationship with the bicycle. First introduced in the United States in the 1830s, the bicycle reached its height of popularity in the 1890s as it evolved to become a popular form of locomotion for adults. Two decades later, ridership in the United States collapsed. As automobile consumption grew, bicycles were seen as backward and unbecoming—particularly for the white middle class. Turpin chronicles the story of how the bicycle’s image changed dramatically, shedding light on how American consumer patterns are shaped over time. Turpin identifies the creation and development of childhood consumerism as a key factor in the bicycle’s evolution. In an attempt to resurrect dwindling sales, sports marketers reimagined the bicycle as a child’s toy. By the 1950s, it had been firmly established as a symbol of boyhood adolescence, further accelerating the declining number of adult consumers. Tracing the ways in which cycling suffered such a loss in popularity among adults is fundamental to understanding why the United States would be considered a “car” culture from the 1950s to today. As a lens for viewing American history, the story of the bicycle deepens our understanding of our national culture and the forces that influence it.

Bicycles in American Highway Planning

Bicycles in American Highway Planning
Author: Bruce D. Epperson
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 248
Release: 2014-11-19
Genre: Transportation
ISBN: 1476616795
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The United States differs from other developed nations in the extent to which its national bicycle transportation policy relies on the use of unmodified roadways, with cyclists obeying the same traffic regulations as motor vehicles. This policy--known as "vehicular cycling"--evolved between 1969, when the "10-speed boom" saw a sharp increase in adult bicycling, and 1991, when the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials adopted an official policy that on-road bikeways were not desirable. This policy resulted from a growing realization by highway engineers and experienced club cyclists that they had parallel interests: the cyclists preferred to ride on highways, because most bikeways were not designed for high speeds and pack riding; and the highway engineers did not want to divert funding from roadways to construct bikeways. Using contemporary magazine articles, government reports, and archival material from industry lobbying groups and national cycling organizations, this book tells the story of how America became a nation of bicyclists without bikeways.

Bicycle/Race

Bicycle/Race
Author: Adonia E. Lugo, PhD
Publisher: Microcosm Publishing
Total Pages: 151
Release: 2018-10-09
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1621069982
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Bicycle/Race paints an unforgettable picture of Los Angeles—and the United States—from the perspective of two wheels. This is a book of borderlands and intersections, a cautionary tale about the dangers of putting infrastructure before culture, and a coming-of-age story about power and identity. The colonial history of southern California is interwoven through Adonia Lugo's story of growing up Chicana in Orange County, becoming a bicycle anthropologist, and co-founding Los Angeles's hallmark open streets cycling event, CicLAvia, along the way. When she takes on racism in the world of national bicycle advocacy in Washington, DC, she finds her voice and heads back to LA to organize the movement for environmental justice in active transportation.In the tradition of City of Quartz, this book will forever change the way you see Los Angeles, race and class in the United States, and the streets and people around you wherever you live.

Bike Battles

Bike Battles
Author: James Longhurst
Publisher: University of Washington Press
Total Pages: 307
Release: 2015-04-15
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 0295805994
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Americans have been riding bikes for more than a century now. So why are most American cities still so ill-prepared to handle cyclists? James Longhurst, a historian and avid cyclist, tackles that question by tracing the contentious debates between American bike riders, motorists, and pedestrians over the shared road. Bike Battles explores the different ways that Americans have thought about the bicycle through popular songs, merit badge pamphlets, advertising, films, newspapers and sitcoms. Those associations shaped the actions of government and the courts when they intervened in bike policy through lawsuits, traffic control, road building, taxation, rationing, import tariffs, safety education and bike lanes from the 1870s to the 1970s. Today, cycling in American urban centers remains a challenge as city planners, political pundits, and residents continue to argue over bike lanes, bike-share programs, law enforcement, sustainability, and public safety. Combining fascinating new research from a wide range of sources with a true passion for the topic, Longhurst shows us that these battles are nothing new; in fact they’re simply a continuation of the original battle over who is - and isn’t - welcome on our roads. Watch the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNleJ0tDvqg