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Leslie Carroll's avatar

I love this post! BTW, we live in a landmarked building, built in 1910 and the co-op is still distributing the same House Rules they were back then!! One house rule still in effect: you may not ride your velocipede through the lobby or bring it into the elevator (so HOW do you get it up the stairs???)

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Maya Rodale's avatar

Leslie, your landmark house rules are hilarious!

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Ann Kennedy Smith's avatar

This is so interesting, Maya, I will be saving this. I wrote a short post about women cyclists in Cambridge UK in the 1890s, when ladies cycling 'bloomers' were seen as revolutionary, but a new style of bicycle saved the day.

https://akennedysmith.substack.com/p/cycles-and-psychos

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Maya Rodale's avatar

Ladies' Psycho! Amazing! Thank you for sharing. This story just gets bigger and bigger...

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Ann Kennedy Smith's avatar

Yes! Great to hear how seriously women took the sport (but of course.)

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Susan Corso's avatar

Such wonderful stories. The thing that hit me most, Maya, was the plurals--not a woman, but women. doing. sports. I discovered a similar saga when I researched women's rowing for one of my books. Amazingly, Harry Parker, the man who coached men's crew for 50 years at Harvard, took on the women's team too--coaching them to an Olympics Silver Medal! He said Yes to those women, as he said, because they were dead serious about their sport. Their story is here: https://a.co/d/8lI290U Thanks again, Maya, for the research and the drawing of attention.

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Maya Rodale's avatar

Thank you for sharing that story, Susan! I think there are more stories like these than we all realize. Your right, it's all about the plurals :-)

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Joy Fields's avatar

I love this!

Here is a great book to go along with this. It’s a fictional account and it’s fabulous!

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27190388-while-the-world-is-still-asleep

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Ann Kennedy Smith's avatar

That sounds fun, Joy! I'm very interested in women cyclists of the 1890s - it really brought new freedom.

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Ann Bruner's avatar

Thanks for fleshing out all this history, Maya! And your comment about the Valley Preferred Velodrome reminds me of the fun we've had as a family there. A particularly fond memory is watching Sarah Uhl in the late 1990s and early 2000s, from nearby, take the sprint win with style! Watching all the world class women in cycling (and soccer/football) was/is inspiring ... 👏 Thanks for providing a deeper history.

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Zena Ryder's avatar

This is so timely for me! I’ve been planning an article about 19th century women wearing trousers and what they did in them! And I am 100% on board with that time-travelling Ted Lasso series 😂

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bnjd's avatar

Great article. Please send a direct message if you would allow me to crosspost it this summer.

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