RSS

Wheels of Change at Public Bikes

20 Oct

“Don’t be a fright, don’t carry a flask and don’t forget your tool bag.” That’s the advice the Omaha Daily Bee gave women wheelers in 1895. We didn’t learn what it means to be a fright, but Katie and I learned a few other things at a book reading for Wheels of Change: How Women Rode the Bicycle to Freedom at PUBLIC Bikes in San Francisco.

We learned how women were riding centuries before the turn of century, how women were off racing from the moment they mounted their steel steeds and how aggressive campaigns by conservative community members couldn’t keep women off their bikes, or off of the road to independence.

We learned how parents who wouldn’t allow their daughters to go to the theater with young men unchaperoned would allow them to go bicycling alone with young men. Could it be that the bike date was the original date? All very interesting to see where we came from as women cyclists.

20111020-211353.jpg

To see where cycling is headed, all we had to do was look around at the venue, the headquarters of PUBLIC Bikes. PUBLIC manufactures and sells European-style city bikes. Since the founder is an designer and an urbanist, not a bike geek, they are elegantly artful as well as perfectly functional for city riding.

PUBLIC has tapped into a new market of bike riders who probably wouldn’t ever call themselves cyclists, much less women wheelers. Like Kirsten, who I met at the book reading. Kirsten lived in Copenhagen for a few months, where she learned how easy and fashionable it can be to get around on a bike. When she moved back to San Francisco she bought a Dutch style bike from PUBLIC for her four mile Cow Hollow-to-South of Market commute to work.

20111017-220721.jpg

Kirsten stopped in at PUBLIC on her way home to buy lights since it’s getting dark earlier these days. She also wanted to get her tires pumped because she didn’t really know how. She also asked when she should come back to get them pumped again. I was surprised that the sales guy didn’t immediately try to sell her a floor pump. But I realized that for bicycles to become widespread as transportation, operating them shouldn’t require any more mechanical skill than owning a car.

The PUBLIC headquarters also serves as showroom for hand picked, positively delightful accessories. It’s where I bought my favorite Nutcase helmet, my Basil shopper pannier and a new pair of flat pedals for Zella to replace her ugly plastic ones. The plastic ones work great, but have absolutely no style.

And style has been important since the era where women traded skirts for bloomers and were cautioned “don’t wear clothes that don’t fit” and “don’t try to ride in your brother’s clothes.” Being a woman wheeler these days, as in the 1890s, doesn’t mean trading in your femininity for your freedom.

What kind of freedom does you bicycle give you?

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

 
5 Comments

Posted by on October 20, 2011 in Around Town

 

5 responses to “Wheels of Change at Public Bikes

  1. Lorri Lee Lown

    October 21, 2011 at 12:11 am

    shoot! wish I knew you needed pedals. I have that exact set, sitting on my counter. I took them off my PUBLIC M8.

     
    • ladyfleur

      October 21, 2011 at 11:19 am

      What kind of pedals did you put on the M8? Something with cages or clipless perhaps?

      I’ve ridden on the new pedals a few times now and I really like them. Large enough platform, grippy enough rubber on the top and they look cute on Zella.

       
      • Lorri Lee Lown

        October 21, 2011 at 11:26 am

        I’ve got an SPD Cafe Pedal (Bike Smart brand) — SPD on one side and nice + grippy on the other side. I like being able to wear my Keen SPDs for longer rides on the M8.

         
  2. Pingback: One Woman, Many Bicycles: 2011 Year in Review « One woman. Many bicycles.
  3. Pingback: Freedom to Roll, Freedom to Roam « One woman. Many bicycles.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Google photo

You are commenting using your Google account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s

 
Ancestral Pathways LLC

This site features a genealogy blog about the Ville Platte Louisiana area African descendant families of Frank, Jason, Denton, Ruben, Leday, Laughtin, Joseph

Jubilo! The Emancipation Century

African Americans in the 19th Century: Slavery, Resistance, Abolition, the Civil War, Emancipation, Reconstruction, and the Nadir

Grits & Gumbo

Southern family stories with a dash of spice

myamericanroots

visionzeromv

Granola Shotgun

Stories About Urbanism, Adaptation, and Resilience

FIT IS A FEMINIST ISSUE

Feminist reflections on fitness, sport, and health

madeonmyfingers

fun.fashion.art and design

The Daily Post

The Art and Craft of Blogging

northern bike

The Independent Bike Blog

A blog for bike shops

The Tusk

Drunk on truth to stupid baby power.

laurashelbyblog

A fine WordPress.com site

jimandsharonsbigadventure

Living the urban/bicycle life

South Bay Streetscape

Exploring Santa Clara County's urban limits

I'm Jame :)

what's on my mind: food, fashion, marketing, cities, tech & more

Let's Go Ride a Bike

Adventures in city cycling

The Backpack Objective

Exploring with kids in the outdoors and in homeschool

Shop by Bike

How and where to shop by bike in Silicon Valley, California

The Empowerment of the Silent Sisterhood

The blog of the Beautiful You MRKH Foundation www.beautifulyoumrkh.org

%d bloggers like this: