Early Safety Bicycle.

[Peg Leg Pom]

Let's suppose that the Diamond Frame chain driven Safety Bicycle was invented not in the 1880's but rather in the 1850's. The Safety Bicycle had a large impact on the late Victorian society, not least in significantly expanding the gene pool of small villages as young men, and less frequently women, were able to travel further to find partners. While not cheap a bike was affordable by those of fairly modest means and they no longer had to live within walking distance of either their work or a railway station. Now suppose this had happened 30 years earlier, before the US Civil War, before the unification of Germany and the Franco Prussian war, long before the first motor car trundled down a German road. How does mid Victorian Society develop with affordable local transport available to office clerks and factory foremen and their wives?

 

[dmg86]

There would demands for better roads in the US. After bicycles became popula in the 1890'sr riders demanded better roads because most roads weren't suited for any kind of bike riding. I saw a book I have mention that out 3,000,000 miles of road in the US only about 130 miles were paved though they didn't specifically say what paved meant.

 

[Peg Leg Pom]

Paved roads extending further out from urban centres is going to have an effect on US towns, perhaps there'd be an early beginning of the infamous suburban sprawl with satellite dormitory villages 5 to 10 miles out. An hours ride to work would be nothing to most mid Victorians.