This great little article by the Southwest Minneapolis Patch is all about bike culture in Minneapolis...but not the bike culture as you know it now, but the bike craze of the 1890's. From "scorchers" and "wheelmen" to the impact of bicycles on the streetcar industry, you'll probably learn quite a bit about the original Twin Cities bike culture. Here are some good tidbits from the article:
In 1896 Susan B. Anthony said, “the bicycle has done more for the emancipation of women than anything else in the world.”
Social columns kept track of who had just purchased a bicycle, as well as who was learning to ride a bike and what injuries they had acquired in doing so.
In Minneapolis, many of the cycling paths built to accommodate the bike craze are still around today. The Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board built paths along Kenwood Parkway, Lake Harriet, and Minnehaha Creek in the 1890’s.
Bicyclists formed the League of American Wheelmen in order to lobby for better conditions. Many of the first paved roads in the United States were paved to facilitate better bicycling conditions.
