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The so-called safety bicycle of the late nineteenth century (1) .......... a far closer resemblance to its modern counterpart than any of its antecedents. The Penny Farthing — named after the disparity between its enormous front wheel and diminutive rear wheel, which mirrored the relative sizes of two British coins — was, to all (2) .......... and purposes, a machine engineered exclusively for speed. An intrepid rider would (3) .......... atop a front wheel standing some 150 centimetres from the ground. This contraption had itself (4) .......... Pierre Lallement's Velocipede, a device incorporating a rotary crank mechanism, as described in his American patent of 1866 — though it still lacked a chain drive, a proper gearing system, and, most alarmingly, any form of braking.
(5) .......... the Penny Farthing had been the near-exclusive preserve of audacious young men, the safety bicycle was accessible to all. Considerable controversy was (6) .......... up in the press around the time of its commercial launch, when reports emerged of young women cycling unaccompanied through New York. These pioneers had, moreover, dared to wear trousers — a (7) .......... outrage in certain quarters. Indeed, the activist Susan B. Anthony declared that bicycling had done more for women's emancipation than any other single development. The bicycle has since remained an (8) .......... symbol of human ingenuity, quietly opening the way towards more accessible and environmentally conscious movement.