a penetrating statement

Bicycling Etiquette for Women: The Rules

professorjoke:

bobbingoblin:

Originally published in an 1895 edition of the New York World:

• Don’t be a fright.
• Don’t faint on the road.
• Don’t cultivate a “bicycle face.”
• Don’t go to church in your bicycle costume.
• Don’t ask, “What do you think of my bloomers?”
• Don’t go out after dark without a male escort.
• Don’t wear clothes that don’t fit.
• Don’t try to ride in your brother’s clothes “to see how it feels.”
• Don’t scream if you meet a cow. If she sees you first, she will run.
• Don’t cultivate everything that is up to date because you ride a wheel.
• Don’t imagine everybody is looking at you.
• Don’t refuse assistance up a hill.
• Don’t chew gum. Exercise your jaws in private.
• Don’t criticize people’s “legs.”
• Don’t try to have every article of your attire “match.”
• Don’t contest the right of way with cable cars.
• Don’t use bicycle slang. Leave that to the boys.
• Don’t scratch a match on the seat of your bloomers.
• Don’t appear in public until you have learned to ride well.

“Don’t scream if you meet a cow” is just common etiquette knowledge, no matter who you are or what you’re doing. But the rest of these are oh so joyously antiquated.

Don’t cultivate a “bicycle face.”

(Source: utne.com)