A Bourgeois Geography of Domestic Bicycling: Using Public Space Responsibly in Toronto and Niagara‐on‐the‐Lake, 1890–1900

  Domestic bicycling emerged in the fin de siécle as a response to perceived violations of haute bourgeois public decorum and comportment. It promoted domestic, aestheticized and “womanly” bicycling and bicycling activities as alternatives to the anti‐domestic bicycling behaviour demonstrated by reckless men and indecorous women. The domestic notion of responsible bicycling in public included the bicycle gymkhana, where the competition was not so much athletic as floral. Accordingly, Toronto's interest in the Niagara‐on‐the‐Lake bicycle gymkhana demonstrates a progressive era impulse to substitute the chaotic with bourgeois constructions of the orderly.