THE BEST BIKE IS A STEP-THROUGH

AS A CHILD, I GOT INTRODUCED TO GENDER AND BICYCLES AT ABOUT the same time. My parents had matching pearlescent green Diamondbacks, but my dad had a large front triangle while my mom had a step-through.

- Aithne Feay

It made sense, they suggested, because women had different needs on the bike than men. Men wore pants and had longer legs; they could step over a high-top tube, while women in dresses could not. The broad implication was that men and women have different needs that, in a binary society, were met with two different solutions.

This gendered distinction in bicycle geometry is as old as the modern bicycle itself. When the first bicycles were invented early in the 19th century, they were considered dangerous toys for young men. With pedals directly mounted to the front hub, any additional fabric between a rider's legs would get caught in the spokes. Women-whose contemporary attire revolved around dresses were virtually excluded from using what were known as high-wheeler (or "penny-farthing") bikes. Then, in the late 19th century, J.K. Starley's Rover Safety Bicycle eschewed the acrobatic mounting requirements and introduced the chain-drive bicycle with matching wheels. By moving the pedals away from the wheels, the safety bicycle made cycling significantly less dangerous and allowed dress-wearing women who typically rode tricycles to find their way onto two-wheeled bikes. The association between women and the safety bike stuck. And it sustained well into the 20th century.