Ladies who cycle

… and a brief spin on a 'Psycho'

When I first spotted this early 1890s bicycle shop advertisement from the archives of the Cambridge Daily News, I was a little surprised that such a thing existed as a riding school for cyclists. But it makes sense that shop owners might want to make the most of the cycle craze that struck Britain and the USA in the late 1880s and 1890s. In the Cambridge advertisement above, a gentleman is helping the lady by firmly gripping the handlebars - but she wouldn’t need his assistance for long. A new invention would ensure that women got the hang of cycling all by themselves.

I was intrigued and amused by the idea of ‘Psychos’ being advertised (see image above). The choice of name might seem bizarre today, but for Victorian women, the invention of the Ladies’ Psycho bicycle in 1888 was hugely liberating. Before then, they w…