The Weekly Pull

“The bicycle will inspire women with more courage, self-respect and self-reliance.” — Susan B. Anthony

In the 1890s, as the bicycle boom swept across the United States and Europe, a strange and now-forgotten medical “condition” entered public conversation: “bicycle face.” Doctors and newspapers warned that women who rode bicycles risked developing a permanently flushed complexion, clenched jaws, bulging eyes, and an exhausted expression. The message was clear, cycling might literally ruin a woman’s face.

The term was popularized by physicians like A. Shadwell, who suggested that the strain and concentration required to ride a bicycle would distort a woman’s appearance. Some medical voices claimed the posture was unladylike; others argued that the exertion could damage women’s reproductive health. Articles appeared in newspapers and magazines repeating these warnings, sometimes with illustrations of grim-faced women hunched over handlebars.

But “bicycle face” was never really about health.

It was about control.

The late 19th century bicycle represented something radical: mobility without permission. Before widespread cycling, women’s movement was often limited by distance, chaperones, and social expectations. A bicycle changed that almost overnight. Suddenly a woman could travel miles on her own schedule, meet friends, go to work, or simply explore beyond the boundaries that society quietly set for her.

That freedom worried many people.

Cycling also challenged social norms in other ways. Riding a bicycle required practical clothing, which helped fuel the rise of bloomers and more functional dress for women. It placed women in public spaces without escorts. It gave them independence, physical strength, and confidence. For a society still grappling with women’s suffrage and shifting gender roles, the bicycle looked less like a pastime and more like a symbol of change.

So critics did what critics often do when confronted with change, they tried to discourage it. If cycling could not be banned outright, perhaps it could be made undesirable. Claiming it would make women unattractive or unhealthy was a convenient way to push them back indoors.

History proved those fears wrong.

The bicycle did not disfigure women. It empowered them.

In fact, many suffragists embraced cycling as a tool of liberation. As Susan B. Anthony famously said, the bicycle had “done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world.” It allowed women to experience independence in a tangible, everyday way, long before they could vote.

Looking back, it is hard to believe that men could feel so threatened by something as simple as two wheels and a chain. My, oh my, have things changed.

Today, most women would probably never consider a bicycle a life-changing or life-giving tool.

But it was.

And in many ways, it still is.

Around the world, bicycles continue to open doors. A bike might allow a young girl in rural Africa to attend a school too far away to walk. It might provide affordable transportation to a job. It might keep someone physically fit and connected to a cycling community. Or it might simply allow a person to see the world in the most beautiful way possible, rolling forward on two wheels.

Cycling is relevant. It is beautiful. And thankfully, it is far removed from the imagined threat of “bicycle face” in the 1890s.

From this history, I draw both a positive and a negative.

The positive is that countless amazing, strong, and courageous women made a path for us to get where we are today, on and off the bike. Their willingness to challenge norms, endure criticism, and keep riding forward changed the world.

The negative is that it is sobering to think about what women endured in those days. They had to push, fight, and create opportunities that they themselves were never born into. Their determination gave future generations freedoms they could only imagine.

Reading history like this fills me with gratitude. I feel incredibly blessed to live in a time when many of those barriers have fallen. That does not mean the work is finished, but it does mean we stand on the shoulders of those who refused to stop pedaling.

So keep reading.
Keep learning.
And keep moving.

Because the next time you swing a leg over a bicycle, you’re not just riding, you’re continuing a story that began more than a century ago.