May 1, 2025
by Tom Ewing
May 2025 has been designated by the Governor of Virginia as “Bike Month” with a proclamation that echoed many themes from cycling history over the past century.
This year’s governor’s proclamation cited the importance of cycling for transportation, recreation, fitness, and fun, the efficiency of cycling for daily transportation, the benefits of reducing traffic congestion and air pollution, the health rewards of cycling, and the potential to inspire more active communities. The proclamation also praised Virginia as a “favorite tourist destination for bicycling enthusiasts,” calling particular attention to rails-to-trails biking paths, and ended by urging the public to raise awareness of cycling by Bike-to-Work events, family rides, and bike rodeos for children.
The idea of a designated “bike week” emerged towards the end of World War I, as bicycling manufacturers hoped to reclaim the momentum of cycling (and soaring sales) from pre-war decades. Bicycle manufacturers, trade associations, repair shops, and retail stores emphasized similar themes in their advertisements timed for bicycle week, often using illustrations that captured the fun and practicality of cycling. On May 6, 1918, for example, the News Leader (Richmond, Virginia), featured a full page advertisement under the headline: “Ride a Bicycle. National Bicycle Week. May 4th to May 11th.”
An advertisement from L. V. Agee, a bicycle repair shop, invited customers to “climb aboard the health wagon,” with the declaration: “Nothing more delightful than a pleasant ride through the country. Bicycle riding affords both pastime and exercise.”
Another advertisement promised a bicycle “to suit every man, woman and child in Richmond,” with an illustration showing a woman on a bicycle waving to a crowd of fellow cyclists. Bickerstaff’s Sons on Main Street included the declaration, “Bicycling is the Best Tonic for the System” under a dramatic drawing of three cyclists leaning over handlebars while the wind whips the woman’s scarf behind her head.
Under the headline, “Facts Many Women Do Not Recognize,” a large advertisement drew upon wartime appeals to patriotism to report: “Going to market, the Red Cross, the hospitals, to work in the factories, offices, and stores; for mental relaxation; women travel awheel by the thousands, day and night…At home women are turning to the bicycle. It makes them independent of street cars, improves their health and affords mental relief through these days of anxiety and suspense.”
The continuity in themes across more than a century is striking. Cycling is celebrated as fun, practical, and healthy, a means to explore the countryside, and a path to independence. More recent additions evident in the 2025 proclamation, such as awareness of cycling’s limited impact on the environment or the option to ride safely along dedicated bike paths, build upon themes already evident in advertising a century ago. Yet the history of cycling also brings a cautionary note. The years after world war I in fact saw a remarkable decline in the production, sale, and use of bicycles — a decline that lasted until the resurgence of cycling in the 1970s. The expansion of bicycle routes, technological innovations such as e-bikes, and awareness of the costly effects of global warming and climate change may be sufficient to prevent similar declines in cycling in the future. The key, now as a century ago, is to follow the recommendations of Virginia Governor and encourage as many people as possible to “engae in bicycling for transportation, recreation, fitness, and fun.”
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