ABSTRACT
This chapter documents and explores women's professional cycling in the late-nineteenth century. The argument proposed is that the popularity of women's cycle racing at the turn of the nineteenth century cannot simply be explained by the Victorian audience's thirst for novelty and the social forces of women's emancipation. The Chelsea Rationalists exemplified a progressive women's cycling club that approved of women racing. It appears that most of its members were also members of the British Rational Dress Association and both organisations boasted the aristocracy amongst its membership, such as Viscountess Lady Harberton. According to Ross Petty, cycle advertisers were among the first to present media images of women 'as active, independent people who enjoyed recreational pursuits'. As Thomas Richards succinctly puts it: 'fundamental imperatives of the capitalist system became tangled up with certain kinds of cultural forms, which after a time became indistinguishable from economic forms'.
