On Tue, 25 Jun 2019 08:46:00 -0700, Andre Jute wrote:

On Sunday, June 23, 2019 at 10:06:50 PM UTC+1, Chalo wrote:
In the early days of cycling, it was the pastime of rich fux, which
gave it a certain implied legitimacy. Then for a time, it was the
leading edge of high tech, to the point that the US government opened a
second patent office just to serve cycling-related patents. So when
this coalition of rich fux and tech boffins (and folks who aspired to
be them) asked for some decent pavement, we started to get decent
pavement.

It was the moral equivalent of today's public resources being thrown
around to develop 5G, or yesterday's public resources being squandered
to subsidize jet travel or freeways or railroads. Then as now, the
rich and influential can use other people's money to get what they
want. Sometimes it works out for those who pay the cost, and sometimes
it doesn't. In the case of Good Roads, I think it worked in favor of
almost everybody.

I didn't know that in the beginning cycling was the pastime of rich
folk, but it stands to reason, because bicycles were expensive and
required a lot of leisure to maintain.

They were initally custom builds.

In Britain the clothes of the
cyclists in old photos tell us they're middle-class or
upper-middle-class folk, professionals and suchlike.

Again, custom built. The three & four wheel versions would lead to the
developmet of the motor car when people addes, steam, electric and ICE
motors to them. the early cars all used "bicycle technology".

The more common "folk" would be a business that found a delivery bicycle
was a cheaper investment, than a horse and cart.

Penny farthing were a rich man's toy that incresed popularity as they
could be constructed by a wider range of "blacksmiths" and not just to
order.

The real take off was the development of the "safety/ordinary"and the and
the evolution of the specialist "black smith' and later factories that
produced them at a price the ordinary man could afford. (Hint Henry ford
learnt that lesson from bicycle manufacturers)

This was mainly by incresed access to paid emplpoymnt. If AJ had looked
around during his brief residence in Australa, he woud have found
historical photographs of hundreds and thousands of worker exiting
factories at the end of the day.

The individual household affordability of the "motor car" was what killed
the bicycle use.

In the States the
major boost cycling got in the ten-speed era of the wretched (by modern
standards) Peugeot bikes was led by middle class trendies and
tofu-eaters, the sort of people how worried that if they jogged, their
knees would wear out.

But not too long afterwards -- I would guess after WW1,

Naah, decades before. hint genealogical records pointed to it well
before then.

this side of the
water cycling became the sport of the workingman,

"Working men" were first recruted by the moneyed better on sports. If he
had skills, he couldget fitted out and sponsored by money, just like a
lot of race horse syndicates these days.

and for those athletic
enough an escape for a few years from the grinding life of the poor.
Though, it must be said, the stories of drugs, including cocaine,
consumed by some of those interwar endurance racers sounds like a modern
UCI nightmare. (Not that the UCI doesn't deserve everything they got
coming.)

Andre Jute Who paid for Major Taylor's first bike?

Jim fitzpatrick mght be able to tell you that or the MT association.