Yes, bicycle-riding required a shift away from the restrictive, modest fashion of the Victorian age, and ushered in a new era of exposed ankles—or at least visible bloomers—that represented such a departure from the laced up, ruffled down fashion that preceded it that bicycling women became a fascination to the (mostly male) newspaper reporters of the time.

Which brings us to a rather remarkable example, from a May 1897 edition of The New York Sun, of early American mansplaining. This particular example features an entire spread—complete with illustrations—of various women's toe-to-knee style in the bicycle age, and writer W.J. Lampton's thoughts on what regional fashion revealed about the city in which a woman was biking. Lampton presents his findings lecture-style (and, curiously, refers to the illustrations as if the reader can see them on a screen), suggesting "Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glories of the Whirling of the Wheel" as musical accompaniment.

Lampton calls his essay: The Evidence of the Bicycle from the Shores of the Atlantic to Those of the Pacific—a Trail of Wondrous and Varied Beauty. The pictures are charming and the copy is outright bizarre, full of flourish and objectification. Here's what he has to say about the bicycling women of Boston:

"As you are all so well aware, Boston is famed for her intellectuals...There is a delicate grace and refinement limned upon the canvas, so to speak, that is as transcendental in its esoteric concept of the metempsychosis of a plate of beans as there is in the sacred codfish that flutters its ichthyological tail over the golden dome of the State House."

The writer comments on the "Teutonic quality" of the female bicyclists in Cincinnati, saying that "hills and the bicycle will always produce the effect that we now see before us."

Philadelphia, was apparently notable for the tight leggings women opted to wear: "As will be seen, this view is a happy medium between Boston and Cincinnati, and shows neither too much intellect nor too much physical vigor. It also indicates by the leggings, which are unmistakable in their outlines, that shrinking diffidence which has justily made Philadelphia admired and loved by the classes as well as the masses."

And Washington, D.C., was "like a poet's dream" and "the Paradise of Bicyclers, whose asphalt pavements are to the bicycler what the golden streets of New Jerusalem are to the angels."

In Albany, Lamtpon imagined women on bicycles saying nothing but "'hills, hills, hills,' and adds a cuss word now and then, not only for the labor involved, but for the unbeautiful results of the wheel in daily use."

He didn't have much to say about Chicago, other than how flat it is and how "delightfully" the female bicyclists "add to the views about Chicago."

New York City, naturally, was noted for its "inimitable stylishness...which cannot be found in any other limbscape on the continent."

In Denver—"what a change has the bicycle wrought!"—women's ankles surpassesd its "distant snow-white mountains as the finest sight on earth"

Nashville's "delightfully harmonious scenery" only got a passing mention.



While Atlanta was creepily praised for "her glorious and goddesslike daughters" who "speak for themselves, silently, but oh so expressively."

The writer noted Detroit's women for their "charm of contour" and "rustic diffidence of manner that is refreshingly pictured in the primness and preciseness of the pose now on view."

And though Pittsburgh was usually "obscured by the smoke that hangs always over the town," the writer found it "truly substantial" in what the city "shows to the eye since the bicycle has come among us."

He went a little nuts over Louisville: "What poetry and symmetry we have before us as the result of easy grades and asphalt pavements, whereupon the beauty that a goddess might well weep to gain is seen on every hand—I beg your pardon—I should perhaps have said on every foot, though I do not wish to make a joke of sacred things. Perhaps nowhere in the world shall we find just such a view as this one is."

But he seemed kind of wishy-washy about New Orleans, where he said women's legs appeared "steadier" than in hillier cities, but "more harmonious," too.

On St. Louis: "Still, it isn't as bad as it is in Chicago."

San Francisco: "Need I call your attention, ladies, to the hill effect in this picture? ... This California product, like the big trees, the big fruit, the big pumpkins, and the big lies of that noble State, is cosmopolitan, and may well be called a composite view."

He was a bit nicer to Baltimore. "In the words of a well-known poet, ladies, let me say: 'Graceful and airy is the Baltimore fairy,' and Baltimore may well be proud of her beauty record. Only a casual glance is necessary at the screen to show to even the most indifferent what there is in Baltimore to make it an ever charming resort for those who love the spinning wheel. Well may she be called the Monumental City."

And then there was Brooklyn, apparently trying just as hard then as it does now, confusing Lampton enough that he claimed to have sent the sketch artist back several times to double check the fashion.