Cycling History

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Cycling Women in the 19th Century in Bremen

Cycling Women in the 19th Century in Bremen

or: How the Germans could become more beautiful and happier (Ricarda Huch) “I believe that if all Germans cycled, they would lose their dull sensuality and be happier and more agreeable.” (Ricarda Huch to Richard Huch 1896)  The Free Hanseatic City of Bremen was a...

Sorting Bremen’s Cycling Advocacy Toolbox

Sorting Bremen’s Cycling Advocacy Toolbox

  Bremen has a long history of developing tools that have been proven to encourage and enable more people to cycle. The first German cycle path was built here in 1897, cycle streets were invented in Bremen in the 1970s, as was contra-flow cycling on one-way...

1970s Tools For 2030 Aims

1970s Tools For 2030 Aims

Is your head stuck in the 1970s? Most of us like to think that we fit well with the modern world. We appreciate democracy. We support equal rights for all. We are tolerant and open to new ways. Yet when it comes to transport policy, many of us can’t get out of 1970s...

Women on bikes – There is a difference

Women on bikes – There is a difference

„The bicycle has done more for the emancipation of middle and upper class women then all the struggles of the womens’ movement“. So wrote the Austrian authoress and feminist Rosa Mayreder (1858-1938). The first female cyclists came from wealthy families, taking the...

Frightening the Horses

Frightening the Horses

In 2014, as we began our research into Bremen's cycling history,  we spent many hours in the Bremen State Archive. It was there that we met Florian Reiß, a historian who was working on a major exhibition about cycling for the Cloppenburg Open Air Museum. We quickly...

Cycling in Bremen – The Early Years

Cycling in Bremen – The Early Years

“I believe that if all Germans cycled, they would lose their dull sensuality and be happier and more agreeable.” (Ricarda Huch to Richard Huch 1896)1  “In no other city in Germany, are cyclists treated as humanely as here in Bremen” (German Bicycle Association meeting...