When did you acquire your first bicycle? I am assuming that you have owned, or still own, a bike.

I know many of us have, at some time, pedalled around on secondhand contraptions in our younger years, but I’m asking when was it you first owned a new bike.

For those of you who are of a certain age, I wouldn’t mind betting that you first took to the road on a new bike after you’d passed the 11- plus exam.

It seemed to be the nationally accepted parental reward for passing this exam.

I don’t suppose that many of us realised at the time just how much a new bike cost.

In the early 1950s, I seem to remember that my new Raleigh – the model with three gears – cost about £12.

Bikes with sporting dropped handlebars and more gears retailed for about £16.

Can you remember first taking to the road on your new bike? I can!

I used to ride my bike every day to get to my school which was a fair number of miles away.

I must have been reasonably fit back then.

It was also a means of achieving a certain degree of freedom.

Just get on your bike – and the world’s your oyster.

But for me that meant pedalling around North Wales and the Wirral.

I was never interested in cycling as a sport – or joining a cycling club.

Had I been alive in West Cumberland in the late 19th century, I might have joined such a club – especially if I’d lived in Maryport. As the local paper commented, in 1899: “The formation of cycling clubs has become a positive craze in Maryport.”

It seems that Maryport Wheelers’ Cycling Club was, in 1899, probably the foremost cycling club in the town. The West Cumberland Times records that their “first general meeting was held over the shop of Mr Beck, Senhouse Street, Maryport” in February 1892 – with some 30 persons attending.

At that meeting were: Messrs Holmes, WN Barnes, WC Hill, J Graham and George Crellan.

They decided to meet monthly. They also decreed that it would be compulsory for all members to wear blue caps with badges.

The Presbyterians had also created a cycling club, as did the Maryport Trinity Baptist Church.

The latter decided to call themselves the Maryport Trinity Cycle Club at their initial meeting in March 1899, which was attended by 50 men and women.

The Rev HC Mander was appointed captain – with Mrs G Brown as ladies vice-captain and R Baxter as gentlemen’s vice-captain.

Some 43 members were enrolled at the meeting, both men and women.

It seems that the Wheelers had no female members.

It wasn’t because they were against women joining their club, the club had, reportedly, tried to persuade women to sign up but, for some reason, they had been unsuccessful. I wonder how long it would be before they did manage to recruit a few lady members.

I have come across mention of another club, the Solway Bicycle Club, Maryport.

This club was organising sports events in the early 1890s.

I don’t know much about this club. Something else to add to my To Be Researched File!

The 1899 press report claims that a cycling club run was enlivened by the presence of women members.

The reporter claimed that the moment they were out with their bikes they seemed to undergo a change of personality.

He claimed that they were more outgoing and even used “slang terms which sound unladylike from the lips of a young lady.”

I wonder what the young ladies thought of their cycling experiences in those late Victorian days. I also wonder what attire they opted for when they rode out into the Cumbrian countryside.

Did they have the nerve to wear knickerbockers? If they did, what sort of reception did they get from members of the general public? Were they shouted at and insulted? And if they turned up at a hotel or eating house, were they ever turned away by disapproving hoteliers?

This did happen nationally to some female cyclists, but it’s highly unlikely that any record of it taking place locally exists. Unless, of course, you know any different. Photographs of these early female cyclists must exist. Perhaps you have some stored away somewhere!

I want to end with my usual moan about cyclists, pedalling furiously on the pavement – especially when they are silently coming up from behind and overtaking me!