Yet bicycles did not give women the vote. There was no miracle; no suffragettes freewheeled through the House of Commons or D-locked themselves to the Downing Street railings. By the time women were finally given the vote in 1928, bicycles were as much a fact of ordinary life as underground trains. But by offering women a chance to see themselves as free, to take possession of their own physical health and to claim their independence in the workplace, the bicycle had done something extraordinary. It had changed the world and made it a better place.