“The velocipede was a very crude affair compared with the modern bicycle,” the New York history website Yodelout reports. “At first it was made with an iron band around the wheels and the saddle was perfectly rigid. Riding in the open was therefore practiced only by those who had the strength and daring to endure its strenuousness.”

As for production, there were four New York City manufacturers in 1869, “all of whom are overwhelmed with demand,” the Times article noted. Enthusiasts, it warned, would have to wait for more than a month to obtain a velocipede, which cost about $100 (about $1,700 today). “Some have been made to order, with ivory handles and covered with silver plating” at $200 or more.

The steep prices didn’t deter 19th-century New Yorkers from mounting up: “It is estimated that there are now in New-York and vicinity 5,000 persons who either know how to ride the velocipede or are learning, and that fully half this number will be mounted next summer,” the article stated. “While it will be impossible for them to navigate successfully in the crowded thoroughfares, they will break out in side streets and in the parks to an alarming extent.”

A Times article on March 8, 1869, noted that most velocipedes being built at the time had two wheels, but there were also models with one, three, four or even five wheels.

The popularity of bicycles has ebbed and flowed over the years. According to Caroline Samponaro, the deputy director of Transportation Alternatives, a nonprofit that promotes cycling, the 1930s and ’40s brought renewed interest in bicycles in the city. A steep rise also took place in the late 1960s and early ’70s.