Re:Why did we wait so long for the bicycle? (2019)
by bawolff on Thursday March 21, 2024 @02:43AM
(#39775492)
> landed gentry giving that up to... Exert themselves to travel to town?
Landed gentry often love showing off their wealth in ecentric ways, so yes i could imagine that.
Re:Why did we wait so long for the bicycle? (2019)
by rob74 on Thursday March 21, 2024 @01:39AM
(#39775154)
Yup... before the industrial revolution, those who could have theoretically afforded a bicycle (and had a need to transport only themselves to somewhere else) could also afford a horse, while all the others not only couldn't afford a bicycle, but also had no need for one. Peasants barely left their village, and if they did, it was to deliver some produce, either to their landlord or to the market, and for that a bicycle wouldn't have helped...
Also, horses are the original self-driving transportation, and anyone with the means to buy some newfangled technology like the early bicycle. It's been a hundred years and we're still not better in that regard than the finest of equine hybrid technology, so can you imagine the landed gentry giving that up to... Exert themselves to travel to town?
(Queue 'bicycle as feminist icon' comments below)