On Tue, 23 Feb 2021 22:51:21 -0500, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 2/23/2021 4:51 PM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
While waiting for the current political discussion to run its course
and die out (Yes, I know I'm part of the problem), I thought it might
be distracting to watch some recent and interesting bicycle related
YouTube videos:

Why Canadians Can't Bike in the Winter (but Finnish people can)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhx-26GfCBU (15:13)
Jan 25, 2021
The authors channel has many interesting bicycle related videos:
https://www.youtube.com/c/NotJustBikes/videos

How Bicycles Caused the Downfall of the British Empire
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IMEJgbZfLk (16:30)
Feb 23, 2021
Spoiler: Japanese invasion of Malaya in 1941.

I found the third one very interesting. But while there were other
situations in which the military employed bicycles (e.g. folding bikes
for paratroopers -
https://www.popularmechanics.com/mil...ing-bicycles/),
and I've seen examples at the Bicycle Museum of America
http://www.bicyclemuseum.com/bicycle-history/
there must have been many more where the concept failed. I remember
seeing a charming play, _Spokesong_, in which one bike-infatuated hero
returns home from war depressed about one such failure. He said
something like "We never anticipated the mud."

Bicycle mounted troops date back to, at least, the end of the 19th
century when both the British and French experimented with bicycle
mounted infantry. In fact the French even developed a folding bicycle
and by 1900 each French line infantry and chasseur battalion had a
cyclist detachment, intended for skirmishing, scouting and dispatch
carrying.

The first U.S. Army bicycle troops seem to be the 25th United States
Infantry. Using a variety of cycle models, they carried out extensive
bicycle journeys covering between 800 and 1,900 miles In 1896 the
Unit, stationed in Montana rode bicycles across roadless landscapes
for hundreds of miles at high speed. The "wheelmen" traveled the 1,900
Miles to St. Louis Missouri in 40 days with an average speed of over 6
mph.
--
Cheers,

John B.