Lifestyle

9 Significant Photos in the History of Women’s Cycling

Photo moments that show how the bicycle paved the way for women's emancipation and how it went on to shape women's cycling.

Opposition

Female cyclist in rational dress from 1889. Source: http://1890swriters.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/1890s-womens-fashion.html
The Safety Cycle: Photograph: London Stereoscopic Company Getty Images
Cambridge students hang an effigy of a woman riding a bike in protest against university admission. Photograph: Hulton Archive/ Getty Images
Source: http://www.brainpickings.org/2012/01/03/donts-for-women-on-bicycles-1895/
Two suffragettes on bicycles in 1914. Photograph: Corbis
Beryl Burton
Connie Carpenter-Phinney wins the LA Olympics Road Race in 1984. Photo sourced from http://pages.rapha.cc/
Helen Wyman wins the 2013 Koppenbergcross. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images Afp/AFP/Getty Images
Photo: http://www.womenstour.co.uk/

Opposition

The level of inequality that women experienced in the past is depicted in this photograph.

Male undergraduates at Cambridge University protested against the full admission of female students by hanging an effigy of a ‘New Woman’ on a bicycle from a window in Market Square circa 1897.

This is an example of how the bicycle was associated with the women’s movement, used here to demonstrate the men’s opposition against a women’s right to have a university education.