Rosabicyclette
La naissance du cyclisme en France
(1869-1890)
The nature of the bicycle as a novel and costly technology, initially set it beyond the reach of anyone outside the social elite: cycling was originally the preserve of France's moneyed and therefore leisured classes. But, as the importance of professional racing grew and as bicycles gradually became more affordable, cycling became increasingly, towards the end of the 19th century, an activity of the lower-middle and working classes.
“Une Course de Vélocipèdes au Jardin du Luxembourg” …a leisured-class activity, 1818.
Une Course de Vélocipèdes au Jardin du Luxembourg. 1818. A Paris chez Genty, Rue St. Jacques, N° 33.
Le vélo à la fin du XIXème siècle, Illustration de la revue du Touring Club de France 1892
‘La vitesse bourgeoise’
Cycling during this early period was described as ‘la vitesse bourgeoise’ . It should be noted that cycle racing was essentially the preserve of male cyclists. Too expensive for the masses, unless they were working-class racers making a living from competition, la vitesse was masculine and middle class. Male cycling could also be slow, of course, in contradistinction to the sweating proletarianism of paid racing stars, but women's bourgeois cycling was almost obligatorily leisurely. Where medical experts authorized female cycling, it was with the condition that activity should be undertaken in moderation and should be accompanied by male guardians. Thus, women's cycling was essentially slow, short-range and social or leisure-orientated. Given the price of machines, only women of means sufficient to obviate the necessity of working could afford bicycles, and true ‘utility’ cycling was therefore rare.
Contradictory advice for women.
Theories and practice of female cycling reflected the difficulties inherent during this period of social, cultural and technological change: although in general, short rides were advised for women, as bicycle equipment improved and women's claims to independence gained credence, longer rides and even touring became possible. Theoretical advice remained contradictory even during the 1890s, oscillating between encouragement of healthy open-air exercise as a tonic for anemic, neurotic women, recurrent concerns over the detrimental effects of pedaling on the womb, the advantages of mixed sociability or the dangers of coquetry, and inappropriate dress and ill-advised mixing of social classes. In 1893, Tissié quoted enthusiastically from a statement by the husband of a woman who had undertaken a lengthy cycling tour carrying heavy photographic equipment
« Nous avons voyagé sur de très mauvaises routes, sans abri contre le vent, le soleil, la pluie, et jamais ma femme ne s'est sentie plus forte. Nous traînions un poids épouvantable […]. Quand elle pense à ce temps de labeurs elle le considère comme le plus beau de sa vie et elle a pourtant été élevée au sein de la richesse et du luxe. (…) une femme ne doit faire que des promenades qui lui permettent de rentrer tous les soirs chez elle’»
Tissié, 1893
Dauncy, H. (2012). French Cycling: A Social and Cultural History. Liverpool Press Scholarship Online. Pg 39
Dauncy, H. (2012). French Cycling: A Social and Cultural History. Liverpool Press Scholarship Online. Pg 40.
Women's leisure cycling, a collective group activity
…rather than the often individual training/racing efforts of men. And since women's leisure riding was invariably in mixed company, it was also invariably a way of developing gender relations. Dr Galtier-Boissière, writing in 1901 but analysing the experience of previous decades, suggested that:
« L’association des deux sexes empêche généralement les excès, en obligeant l'homme à ménager galamment les forces de sa compagne. Enfin, l'action sur les mœurs est indéniable: la camaraderie réelle qui s'établit entre les jeunes filles et jeunes gens à la suite de longues courses de cyclisme a sur tous un effet bienfaisant. (…) ‘La sobriété de mise qu'impose le cyclisme supprime la coquetterie ou du moins n'en laisse subsister que ce grain imperceptible qui fait le charme de la femme’ "»
© Gallica. Bbliothèque National de France
« Quand les ouvriers se déplaçaient en bicyclette 1931 ». Album Franco Boggia
Cycling, competition and « Quand les ouvriers se déplaçaient en bicyclette 1931 »
The 1890s and 1900s were to see the professionalization of cycle sport. What was considered as a ‘sport’ before then was a matter of some ambiguity. Cycling was not a sport taught in schools or played at university; it was not a sport that could be played as a dilettante (except in the form of touring). Cycling as a sport requiring training, effort, discipline, competition and performance. In France at least, the more a sport required training, specialization and professionalism and the more it became the focus of commercial interests, the less it was likely to interest the upper classes. The bicycle as a paid, sporting technology encouraged its use as a tool for the working class even outside of the sporting context. Professional sport and commerce were antithetical to bourgeois conceptions of the purity of amateurism.
